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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ftninstnf:oai:brage.nina.no:11250/2387144 2023-05-15T14:59:55+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 Mosbacher, Jesper Bruun Michelsen, Anders Stelvig, Mikkel Hendrichsen, Ditte Katrine Schmidt, Niels Martin 2016 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2387144 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 eng eng PLoS ONE 2016, 11(4) urn:issn:1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2387144 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 cristin:1351999 Navngivelse-Ikkekommersiell-IngenBearbeidelse 3.0 Norge http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/no/ CC-BY-NC-ND 11 PLoS One 4 Peer reviewed 2016 ftninstnf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 2021-12-23T07:16:57Z 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. Text Arctic Greenland muskox ovibos moschatus Norwegian Institute for Nature Research: Brage NINA Arctic Greenland PLOS ONE 11 4 e0152874 |
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Open Polar |
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Norwegian Institute for Nature Research: Brage NINA |
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ftninstnf |
language |
English |
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 |
Text |
author |
Mosbacher, Jesper Bruun Michelsen, Anders Stelvig, Mikkel Hendrichsen, Ditte Katrine Schmidt, Niels Martin |
spellingShingle |
Mosbacher, Jesper Bruun Michelsen, Anders Stelvig, Mikkel Hendrichsen, Ditte Katrine Schmidt, Niels Martin 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 |
author_facet |
Mosbacher, Jesper Bruun Michelsen, Anders Stelvig, Mikkel Hendrichsen, Ditte Katrine Schmidt, Niels Martin |
author_sort |
Mosbacher, Jesper Bruun |
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 |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2387144 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Greenland muskox ovibos moschatus |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland muskox ovibos moschatus |
op_source |
11 PLoS One 4 |
op_relation |
PLoS ONE 2016, 11(4) urn:issn:1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2387144 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152874 cristin:1351999 |
op_rights |
Navngivelse-Ikkekommersiell-IngenBearbeidelse 3.0 Norge http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/no/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
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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