MOOSE DIET AND USE OF SUCCESSIONAL FORESTS IN THE CANADIAN TAIGA

• Main Author: Thomas, D. C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Lakehead University 1990
• Subjects: Canada; Alces alces; Rangifer tarandus; taiga
• Online Access: http://alcesjournal.org/index.php/alces/article/view/1139

An estimate of the winter diet of moose (Alces alces) in the taiga was assessed from microhistological analysis of winter-type pellets obtained mostly in summer, 1983-87, from 23 locations in northern Canada. Betula spp.-bark, mostly B. papyrifera, comprised 85% of the fragment densities, excluding one atypical sample in which Pinus banksiana accounted for 83% of the fragment densities. Salix. spp. and other Betula spp. fragments comprised most of the remainder. Moose pellet group densities at 197 upland sites were highest in regenerating forests 20-40 years after fire; those of barren ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus) highest-in forests >60 years after fire. Without fire, the taiga would support extremely low densities of moose. Lichens comprised 36% of plant fragments in pellets of moose eating arboreal lichens and cratering like woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in the same old growth forest in Jasper-National Park. Competition between moose and caribou for arboreal lichens and Equisetum spp. potentially exists.