Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice
We report the first satellite tracking of natal dispersal by an Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) between continents and High-Arctic ecosystems. A young female left Spitsbergen (Svalbard Archipelago, Norway) on 26 March 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 76 days later, after travelling a...
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Norwegian Polar Institute
2019
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Online Access: | https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512 https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v38.3512 |
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ftjpolarres:oai:journals.openacademia.net:article/3512 2024-09-09T19:17:27+00:00 Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice Fuglei, Eva Tarroux, Arnaud 2019-06-24 application/pdf text/html application/epub+zip application/xml https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512 https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v38.3512 eng eng Norwegian Polar Institute https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9288 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9289 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9290 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9291 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9337 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/14633 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512 doi:10.33265/polar.v38.3512 Polar Research; Vol 38 (2019) 1751-8369 Argos satellite tracking blue morph coastal fox lemming fox large-scale movements Vulpes lagopus info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2019 ftjpolarres https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v38.3512 2024-06-20T23:33:17Z We report the first satellite tracking of natal dispersal by an Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) between continents and High-Arctic ecosystems. A young female left Spitsbergen (Svalbard Archipelago, Norway) on 26 March 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 76 days later, after travelling a cumulative distance of 3506 km, bringing her ca. 1789 km away (straight-line distance) from her natal area. The total cumulative distance travelled during the entire tracking period, starting when she left her natal area on 1 March 2018 and ending when she settled on Ellesmere Island on 1 July 2018, was 4415 km. This is among the longest dispersal events ever recorded for an Arctic fox. Crossing extensive stretches of sea ice and glaciers, the female moved at an average rate of 46.3 km/day ± 41.1 SD. The maximum movement rate was 155 km/day and occurred on the ice sheet in northern Greenland. This is the fastest movement rate recorded for this species. The northernmost location recorded was on the sea ice off northern Greenland at a latitude of 84.7°N. The Arctic fox was of the blue colour morph typical for coastal environments, where Arctic foxes are adapted to food webs without lemmings but with substantial inputs of marine food resources. The Arctic fox settled on Ellesmere Island in a food web with lemmings, thereby switching ecosystems. Our observation supports evidence of gene flow across Arctic regions, including those seasonally bridged by sea ice, found in studies of the circumpolar genetic structure of Arctic fox populations. View the supplementary animation. This article has a related Erratum. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Fox Arctic Ellesmere Island glacier* Greenland Ice Sheet Nunavut Polar Research Sea ice Svalbard Vulpes lagopus Spitsbergen Polar Research Arctic Canada Ellesmere Island Greenland Norway Nunavut Svalbard Svalbard Archipelago Polar Research 38 0 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Polar Research |
op_collection_id |
ftjpolarres |
language |
English |
topic |
Argos satellite tracking blue morph coastal fox lemming fox large-scale movements Vulpes lagopus |
spellingShingle |
Argos satellite tracking blue morph coastal fox lemming fox large-scale movements Vulpes lagopus Fuglei, Eva Tarroux, Arnaud Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
topic_facet |
Argos satellite tracking blue morph coastal fox lemming fox large-scale movements Vulpes lagopus |
description |
We report the first satellite tracking of natal dispersal by an Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) between continents and High-Arctic ecosystems. A young female left Spitsbergen (Svalbard Archipelago, Norway) on 26 March 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 76 days later, after travelling a cumulative distance of 3506 km, bringing her ca. 1789 km away (straight-line distance) from her natal area. The total cumulative distance travelled during the entire tracking period, starting when she left her natal area on 1 March 2018 and ending when she settled on Ellesmere Island on 1 July 2018, was 4415 km. This is among the longest dispersal events ever recorded for an Arctic fox. Crossing extensive stretches of sea ice and glaciers, the female moved at an average rate of 46.3 km/day ± 41.1 SD. The maximum movement rate was 155 km/day and occurred on the ice sheet in northern Greenland. This is the fastest movement rate recorded for this species. The northernmost location recorded was on the sea ice off northern Greenland at a latitude of 84.7°N. The Arctic fox was of the blue colour morph typical for coastal environments, where Arctic foxes are adapted to food webs without lemmings but with substantial inputs of marine food resources. The Arctic fox settled on Ellesmere Island in a food web with lemmings, thereby switching ecosystems. Our observation supports evidence of gene flow across Arctic regions, including those seasonally bridged by sea ice, found in studies of the circumpolar genetic structure of Arctic fox populations. View the supplementary animation. This article has a related Erratum. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Fuglei, Eva Tarroux, Arnaud |
author_facet |
Fuglei, Eva Tarroux, Arnaud |
author_sort |
Fuglei, Eva |
title |
Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
title_short |
Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
title_full |
Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
title_fullStr |
Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
title_sort |
arctic fox dispersal from svalbard to canada: one female’s long run across sea ice |
publisher |
Norwegian Polar Institute |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512 https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v38.3512 |
geographic |
Arctic Canada Ellesmere Island Greenland Norway Nunavut Svalbard Svalbard Archipelago |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada Ellesmere Island Greenland Norway Nunavut Svalbard Svalbard Archipelago |
genre |
Arctic Fox Arctic Ellesmere Island glacier* Greenland Ice Sheet Nunavut Polar Research Sea ice Svalbard Vulpes lagopus Spitsbergen |
genre_facet |
Arctic Fox Arctic Ellesmere Island glacier* Greenland Ice Sheet Nunavut Polar Research Sea ice Svalbard Vulpes lagopus Spitsbergen |
op_source |
Polar Research; Vol 38 (2019) 1751-8369 |
op_relation |
https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9288 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9289 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9290 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9291 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/9337 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512/14633 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3512 doi:10.33265/polar.v38.3512 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v38.3512 |
container_title |
Polar Research |
container_volume |
38 |
container_issue |
0 |
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1809757460208025600 |