Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition
Aging individuals is a prerequisite to many studies in wildlife biology. In mammals, the most accurate methods are based on cement lines analysis and require tooth extraction. Here, we adapted a method based on tooth wear assessment in live individuals and calibrated against cement lines counts on d...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00304 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.2981/wlb.00304 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2981/wlb.00304 |
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crwiley:10.2981/wlb.00304 2024-04-07T07:49:57+00:00 Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition Chevallier, Clément Gauthier, Gilles Berteaux, Dominique Canada Foundation for Innovation Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Parks Canada Université du Québec à Rimouski 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00304 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.2981/wlb.00304 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2981/wlb.00304 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Wildlife Biology volume 2017, issue 1, page 1-6 ISSN 1903-220X 1903-220X Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics journal-article 2017 crwiley https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00304 2024-03-08T03:54:31Z Aging individuals is a prerequisite to many studies in wildlife biology. In mammals, the most accurate methods are based on cement lines analysis and require tooth extraction. Here, we adapted a method based on tooth wear assessment in live individuals and calibrated against cement lines counts on dead individuals. We developed and tested this less invasive method in arctic foxes Vulpes lagopus. We photographed dentition of live individuals captured in 2006–2013 and of skulls collected opportunistically in 2003–2013. Five observers assessed twice the tooth wear of 245 sets of pictures (left, frontal, and right views of the dentition for 179 captures and 66 skulls, with a mean of 7.2 pictures per set) to obtain a teeth condition index (TCI) for each set. TCI was highly repeatable, with an intraclass correlation coefficient averaging 0.89 and 0.83 within and between observers, respectively. We then used 44 known‐aged individuals to predict fox age from TCI through linear regression (age = 0.62 × TCI + 1.04, r 2 = 0.64). We tested through jackknife validation the ability of this model to accurately age foxes. The rate of correct classification of exact age was 39%, while 80% and 100% of predicted ages were within one and two years of the true age, respectively. The model predicted correctly the age class (young, prime‐age adult, old) of individuals 75% of the time. We conclude that our proposed method, which is much less invasive than those based on tooth extraction, can allow progress in the study of demography of arctic foxes, and potentially other mammal species. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Vulpes lagopus Wiley Online Library Arctic Wildlife Biology 2017 1 1 6 |
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English |
topic |
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
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Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Chevallier, Clément Gauthier, Gilles Berteaux, Dominique Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition |
topic_facet |
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
description |
Aging individuals is a prerequisite to many studies in wildlife biology. In mammals, the most accurate methods are based on cement lines analysis and require tooth extraction. Here, we adapted a method based on tooth wear assessment in live individuals and calibrated against cement lines counts on dead individuals. We developed and tested this less invasive method in arctic foxes Vulpes lagopus. We photographed dentition of live individuals captured in 2006–2013 and of skulls collected opportunistically in 2003–2013. Five observers assessed twice the tooth wear of 245 sets of pictures (left, frontal, and right views of the dentition for 179 captures and 66 skulls, with a mean of 7.2 pictures per set) to obtain a teeth condition index (TCI) for each set. TCI was highly repeatable, with an intraclass correlation coefficient averaging 0.89 and 0.83 within and between observers, respectively. We then used 44 known‐aged individuals to predict fox age from TCI through linear regression (age = 0.62 × TCI + 1.04, r 2 = 0.64). We tested through jackknife validation the ability of this model to accurately age foxes. The rate of correct classification of exact age was 39%, while 80% and 100% of predicted ages were within one and two years of the true age, respectively. The model predicted correctly the age class (young, prime‐age adult, old) of individuals 75% of the time. We conclude that our proposed method, which is much less invasive than those based on tooth extraction, can allow progress in the study of demography of arctic foxes, and potentially other mammal species. |
author2 |
Canada Foundation for Innovation Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Parks Canada Université du Québec à Rimouski |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Chevallier, Clément Gauthier, Gilles Berteaux, Dominique |
author_facet |
Chevallier, Clément Gauthier, Gilles Berteaux, Dominique |
author_sort |
Chevallier, Clément |
title |
Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition |
title_short |
Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition |
title_full |
Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition |
title_fullStr |
Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition |
title_full_unstemmed |
Age Estimation of Live Arctic Foxes Vulpes lagopus Based on Teeth Condition |
title_sort |
age estimation of live arctic foxes vulpes lagopus based on teeth condition |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00304 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.2981/wlb.00304 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2981/wlb.00304 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Vulpes lagopus |
genre_facet |
Arctic Vulpes lagopus |
op_source |
Wildlife Biology volume 2017, issue 1, page 1-6 ISSN 1903-220X 1903-220X |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00304 |
container_title |
Wildlife Biology |
container_volume |
2017 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
1 |
op_container_end_page |
6 |
_version_ |
1795664467095191552 |