Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals
Abstract Fossorial locomotion is often considered as the most energetically costly of all terrestrial locomotion. Small arctic rodents, such as lemmings, dig tunnels not only in the soil but also through the snowpack, which is present for over 8 months of the year. Lemmings typically dig in the soft...
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crwiley:10.1002/ecs2.3835 2024-06-02T08:01:18+00:00 Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals Poirier, Mathilde Fauteux, Dominique Gauthier, Gilles Domine, Florent Lamarre, Jean‐François Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies Canada First Research Excellence Fund W. Garfield Weston Foundation 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3835 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecs2.3835 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ecs2.3835 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecs2.3835 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Ecosphere volume 12, issue 11 ISSN 2150-8925 2150-8925 journal-article 2021 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3835 2024-05-06T07:00:51Z Abstract Fossorial locomotion is often considered as the most energetically costly of all terrestrial locomotion. Small arctic rodents, such as lemmings, dig tunnels not only in the soil but also through the snowpack, which is present for over 8 months of the year. Lemmings typically dig in the softest snow layer called the depth hoar but with climate change, melt‐freeze and rain‐on‐snow (ROS) events are expected to increase in the Arctic, leading to a higher frequency of hardened snowpacks. We assessed the impacts of snow hardness on the locomotion of two lemming species showing different morphological adaptations for digging. We hypothesized that an increase in snow hardness would (1) decrease lemming performance and (2) increase their effort while digging, but those responses would differ between lemming species. We exposed four brown lemmings ( Lemmus trimucronatus ) and three collared lemmings ( Dicrostonyx groenlandicus ) to snow of different hardness (soft, hard, and ROS) during 30‐min trials ( n = 63 trials) in a cold room and filmed their behavior. We found that the digging speed and tunnel length of both species decreased with snow hardness and density, underlining the critical role of snow properties in affecting lemming digging performance. During the ROS trials, time spent digging by lemmings increased considerably and they also started using their incisors to help break the hard snow, validating our second hypothesis. Overall, digging performance was higher in collared lemmings, the species showing more morphological adaptations to digging, than in brown lemmings. We conclude that the digging performance of lemming is highly dependent on snowpack hardness and that the anticipated increase in ROS events may pose a critical energetic challenge for arctic rodent populations. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Dicrostonyx groenlandicus Lemmus trimucronatus Wiley Online Library Arctic Ecosphere 12 11 |
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Open Polar |
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Wiley Online Library |
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crwiley |
language |
English |
description |
Abstract Fossorial locomotion is often considered as the most energetically costly of all terrestrial locomotion. Small arctic rodents, such as lemmings, dig tunnels not only in the soil but also through the snowpack, which is present for over 8 months of the year. Lemmings typically dig in the softest snow layer called the depth hoar but with climate change, melt‐freeze and rain‐on‐snow (ROS) events are expected to increase in the Arctic, leading to a higher frequency of hardened snowpacks. We assessed the impacts of snow hardness on the locomotion of two lemming species showing different morphological adaptations for digging. We hypothesized that an increase in snow hardness would (1) decrease lemming performance and (2) increase their effort while digging, but those responses would differ between lemming species. We exposed four brown lemmings ( Lemmus trimucronatus ) and three collared lemmings ( Dicrostonyx groenlandicus ) to snow of different hardness (soft, hard, and ROS) during 30‐min trials ( n = 63 trials) in a cold room and filmed their behavior. We found that the digging speed and tunnel length of both species decreased with snow hardness and density, underlining the critical role of snow properties in affecting lemming digging performance. During the ROS trials, time spent digging by lemmings increased considerably and they also started using their incisors to help break the hard snow, validating our second hypothesis. Overall, digging performance was higher in collared lemmings, the species showing more morphological adaptations to digging, than in brown lemmings. We conclude that the digging performance of lemming is highly dependent on snowpack hardness and that the anticipated increase in ROS events may pose a critical energetic challenge for arctic rodent populations. |
author2 |
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies Canada First Research Excellence Fund W. Garfield Weston Foundation |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Poirier, Mathilde Fauteux, Dominique Gauthier, Gilles Domine, Florent Lamarre, Jean‐François |
spellingShingle |
Poirier, Mathilde Fauteux, Dominique Gauthier, Gilles Domine, Florent Lamarre, Jean‐François Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
author_facet |
Poirier, Mathilde Fauteux, Dominique Gauthier, Gilles Domine, Florent Lamarre, Jean‐François |
author_sort |
Poirier, Mathilde |
title |
Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
title_short |
Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
title_full |
Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
title_fullStr |
Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
title_sort |
snow hardness impacts intranivean locomotion of arctic small mammals |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3835 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecs2.3835 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ecs2.3835 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecs2.3835 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Dicrostonyx groenlandicus Lemmus trimucronatus |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Dicrostonyx groenlandicus Lemmus trimucronatus |
op_source |
Ecosphere volume 12, issue 11 ISSN 2150-8925 2150-8925 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3835 |
container_title |
Ecosphere |
container_volume |
12 |
container_issue |
11 |
_version_ |
1800745609761652736 |