Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck

1. A relationship between winter weather and survival of northern ungulates has long been established, yet the possible roles of biological (e.g., nutritional status) and environmental (e.g., weather) conditions make it important to determine which potential limiting factors are most influential. 2....

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Main Author: Kautz, Todd
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb
http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb
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spelling ftdatacite:10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb 2023-05-15T15:50:56+02:00 Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck Kautz, Todd 2020 https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb en eng Dryad Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode cc0-1.0 CC0 dataset Dataset 2020 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb 2022-02-08T12:55:18Z 1. A relationship between winter weather and survival of northern ungulates has long been established, yet the possible roles of biological (e.g., nutritional status) and environmental (e.g., weather) conditions make it important to determine which potential limiting factors are most influential. 2. Our objective was to examine the potential effects of individual (body mass and age) and extrinsic (winter severity and snow melt conditions) factors on the magnitude and timing of mortality for adult (>2.5 years old) female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus [Zimmerman, 1780] during February–May in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. 3. One hundred and fifty deer were captured and monitored during 2009–2015 in two areas with varying snowfall. February–May survival ranged from 0.24–0.89 (mean = 0.69) across years. Mortality risk increased 1.9% with each unit increase of cumulative winter severity index, decreased 8.2% with each cumulative snow free day, and decreased 4.3% with each kg increase in body mass. Age and weekly snow depth did not influence weekly deer survival. Predation, primarily from coyote (Canis latrans [Say, 1823]) and wolves (Canis lupus [L., 1758]), accounted for 78% of known-cause mortalities. 4. Our results suggest that cumulative winter severity, and possibly to a lesser degree deer condition entering winter, impacted deer winter survival. However, the timing of spring snow melt appeared to be the most influential factor determining late winter mortality of deer in our study. This supports the hypothesis that nutrition and energetic demands from weather conditions are both important to northern ungulate winter ecology. Under this model, a delay of several weeks in the timing of spring snow melt could exert a large influence on deer survival, resulting in a survival bottleneck. Dataset Canis lupus DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Zimmerman ENVELOPE(167.167,167.167,-73.300,-73.300)
institution Open Polar
collection DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology)
op_collection_id ftdatacite
language English
description 1. A relationship between winter weather and survival of northern ungulates has long been established, yet the possible roles of biological (e.g., nutritional status) and environmental (e.g., weather) conditions make it important to determine which potential limiting factors are most influential. 2. Our objective was to examine the potential effects of individual (body mass and age) and extrinsic (winter severity and snow melt conditions) factors on the magnitude and timing of mortality for adult (>2.5 years old) female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus [Zimmerman, 1780] during February–May in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. 3. One hundred and fifty deer were captured and monitored during 2009–2015 in two areas with varying snowfall. February–May survival ranged from 0.24–0.89 (mean = 0.69) across years. Mortality risk increased 1.9% with each unit increase of cumulative winter severity index, decreased 8.2% with each cumulative snow free day, and decreased 4.3% with each kg increase in body mass. Age and weekly snow depth did not influence weekly deer survival. Predation, primarily from coyote (Canis latrans [Say, 1823]) and wolves (Canis lupus [L., 1758]), accounted for 78% of known-cause mortalities. 4. Our results suggest that cumulative winter severity, and possibly to a lesser degree deer condition entering winter, impacted deer winter survival. However, the timing of spring snow melt appeared to be the most influential factor determining late winter mortality of deer in our study. This supports the hypothesis that nutrition and energetic demands from weather conditions are both important to northern ungulate winter ecology. Under this model, a delay of several weeks in the timing of spring snow melt could exert a large influence on deer survival, resulting in a survival bottleneck.
format Dataset
author Kautz, Todd
spellingShingle Kautz, Todd
Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
author_facet Kautz, Todd
author_sort Kautz, Todd
title Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
title_short Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
title_full Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
title_fullStr Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
title_full_unstemmed Influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
title_sort influence of biological and environmental conditions on winter mortality risk of a northern ungulate: evidence for a late-winter survival bottleneck
publisher Dryad
publishDate 2020
url https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb
http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb
long_lat ENVELOPE(167.167,167.167,-73.300,-73.300)
geographic Zimmerman
geographic_facet Zimmerman
genre Canis lupus
genre_facet Canis lupus
op_rights Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal
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op_rightsnorm CC0
op_doi https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0vwb
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