Data from: Using experimentation to understand the 10-year snowshoe hare cycle in the boreal forest of North America ...

• Main Authors: Krebs, Charles, Boonstra, Rudy, Boutin, Stan, Krebs, Charles J.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2018
• Subjects: Anthropocene; Yukon; Lepus americanus; food shortage; travelling waves; sublethal stress; Canada; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.684s1; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.684s1

1. Population cycles have long fascinated ecologists from the time of Charles Elton in the 1920s. The discovery of large population fluctuations in undisturbed ecosystems challenged the idea that pristine nature was in a state of balance. The 10-year cycle of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus Erxleben) across the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska is a classic cycle, recognized by fur traders for more than 300 years. 2. Since the 1930s ecologists have investigated the mechanisms that might cause these cycles. Proposed causal mechanisms have varied from sunspots to food supplies, parasites, diseases, predation, and social behaviour. Both the birth rate and the death rate change dramatically over the cycle. Social behaviour was eliminated as a possible cause because snowshoe hares are not territorial and do not commit infanticide. 3. Since the 1960s large-scale manipulative experiments have been used to discover the major limiting factors. Food supply and predation quickly became recognized as potential key ... : 1_Metadata for Kluane Hare GridsDescriptive data for the data given in the following 5 files2_Phases of Hare CycleDescribes the phases of the ten-year cycle of snowshoe hares for the years of study in the Yukon3_Monitoring Data for Small MammalsThe detailed data for the 3 main species discussed in this paper for the years studied, population size and confidence limits.4_Controls Hare Live trap data KluaneThe detailed demographic data for snowshoe hares on the control grids by capture date over all the years of study and all the grids that were controls.5_Feeding Experiment Data Figure 1The data used in Figure 1 for the feeding experiment on hares.6_Fence+Food Hare Capture DataThe detailed demographic data for the 1986-96 fence and food individual snowshoe hares by capture time, for this experiment that has been critical for our understanding. ...