Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs.
The nutritional state of animals is tightly linked to the ambient environment, and for northern ungulates the state strongly influences vital population demographics, such as pregnancy rates. Continuously growing tissues, such as hair, can be viewed as dietary records of animals over longer temporal...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:939e02ada4cb4e75a7862f8bdfe2a60c 2023-05-15T15:00:55+02:00 Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. Jesper Bruun Mosbacher Anders Michelsen Mikkel Stelvig Ditte Katrine Hendrichsen Niels Martin Schmidt 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 https://doaj.org/article/939e02ada4cb4e75a7862f8bdfe2a60c EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4838213?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 https://doaj.org/article/939e02ada4cb4e75a7862f8bdfe2a60c PLoS ONE, Vol 11, Iss 4, p e0152874 (2016) Medicine R Science Q article 2016 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 2022-12-31T06:34:19Z The nutritional state of animals is tightly linked to the ambient environment, and for northern ungulates the state strongly influences vital population demographics, such as pregnancy rates. Continuously growing tissues, such as hair, can be viewed as dietary records of animals over longer temporal scales. Using sequential data on nitrogen stable isotopes (δ15N) in muskox guard hairs from ten individuals in high arctic Northeast Greenland, we were able to reconstruct the dietary history of muskoxen over approximately 2.5 years with a high temporal resolution of app. 9 days. The dietary chronology included almost three full summer and winter periods. The diet showed strong intra- and inter-annual seasonality, and was significantly linked to changes in local environmental conditions (temperature and snow depth). The summer diets were highly similar across years, reflecting a graminoid-dominated diet. In contrast, winter diets were markedly different between years, a pattern apparently linked to snow conditions. Snow-rich winters had markedly higher δ15N values than snow-poor winters, indicating that muskoxen had limited access to forage, and relied more heavily on their body stores. Due to the close link between body stores and calf production in northern ungulates, the dietary winter signals could eventually serve as an indicator of calf production the following spring. Our study opens the field for further studies and longer chronologies to test such links. The method of sequential stable isotope analysis of guard hairs thus constitutes a promising candidate for population-level monitoring of animals in remote, arctic areas. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Greenland muskox ovibos moschatus Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Greenland PLOS ONE 11 4 e0152874 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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English |
topic |
Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Jesper Bruun Mosbacher Anders Michelsen Mikkel Stelvig Ditte Katrine Hendrichsen Niels Martin Schmidt Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
The nutritional state of animals is tightly linked to the ambient environment, and for northern ungulates the state strongly influences vital population demographics, such as pregnancy rates. Continuously growing tissues, such as hair, can be viewed as dietary records of animals over longer temporal scales. Using sequential data on nitrogen stable isotopes (δ15N) in muskox guard hairs from ten individuals in high arctic Northeast Greenland, we were able to reconstruct the dietary history of muskoxen over approximately 2.5 years with a high temporal resolution of app. 9 days. The dietary chronology included almost three full summer and winter periods. The diet showed strong intra- and inter-annual seasonality, and was significantly linked to changes in local environmental conditions (temperature and snow depth). The summer diets were highly similar across years, reflecting a graminoid-dominated diet. In contrast, winter diets were markedly different between years, a pattern apparently linked to snow conditions. Snow-rich winters had markedly higher δ15N values than snow-poor winters, indicating that muskoxen had limited access to forage, and relied more heavily on their body stores. Due to the close link between body stores and calf production in northern ungulates, the dietary winter signals could eventually serve as an indicator of calf production the following spring. Our study opens the field for further studies and longer chronologies to test such links. The method of sequential stable isotope analysis of guard hairs thus constitutes a promising candidate for population-level monitoring of animals in remote, arctic areas. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jesper Bruun Mosbacher Anders Michelsen Mikkel Stelvig Ditte Katrine Hendrichsen Niels Martin Schmidt |
author_facet |
Jesper Bruun Mosbacher Anders Michelsen Mikkel Stelvig Ditte Katrine Hendrichsen Niels Martin Schmidt |
author_sort |
Jesper Bruun Mosbacher |
title |
Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. |
title_short |
Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. |
title_full |
Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. |
title_fullStr |
Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Show Me Your Rump Hair and I Will Tell You What You Ate - The Dietary History of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) Revealed by Sequential Stable Isotope Analysis of Guard Hairs. |
title_sort |
show me your rump hair and i will tell you what you ate - the dietary history of muskoxen (ovibos moschatus) revealed by sequential stable isotope analysis of guard hairs. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 https://doaj.org/article/939e02ada4cb4e75a7862f8bdfe2a60c |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Greenland muskox ovibos moschatus |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland muskox ovibos moschatus |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 11, Iss 4, p e0152874 (2016) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4838213?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 https://doaj.org/article/939e02ada4cb4e75a7862f8bdfe2a60c |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
e0152874 |
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1766332972833701888 |