Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter
The winter diet of barren-ground caribou may affect adult survival, timing of parturition, neonatal survival, and postpartum mass. We used microhistological analyses and hormone levels in feces to determine sex-specific late-winter diets, pregnancy rates, group composition, and endocrine-based measu...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4464525 2023-05-15T15:10:59+02:00 Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter Joly, Kyle Wasser, Samuel K. Booth, Rebecca 2015-06-10 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464525/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061003 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127586 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464525/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127586 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication CC0 PDM Research Article Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127586 2015-07-05T00:13:49Z The winter diet of barren-ground caribou may affect adult survival, timing of parturition, neonatal survival, and postpartum mass. We used microhistological analyses and hormone levels in feces to determine sex-specific late-winter diets, pregnancy rates, group composition, and endocrine-based measures of physiological and nutritional stress. Lichens, which are highly digestible but contain little protein, dominated the diet (> 68%) but were less prevalent in the diets of pregnant females as compared to non-pregnant females and males. The amount of lichens in the diets of pregnant females decreased at higher latitudes and as winter progressed. Pregnancy rates (82.1%, 95% CI = 76.0 – 88.1%) of adult cows were within the expected range for a declining herd, while pregnancy status was not associated with lichen abundance in the diet. Most groups (80%) were of mixed sex. Male: female ratios (62:100) were not skewed enough to affect the decline. Levels of hormones indicating nutritional stress were detected in areas of low habitat quality and at higher latitudes. Levels of hormones indicated that physiological stress was greatest for pregnant cows, which faced the increasing demands of gestation in late winter. These fecal-based measures of diet and stress provided contextual information for the potential mechanisms of the ongoing decline. Non-invasive techniques, such as monitoring diets, pregnancy rates, sex ratios and stress levels from fecal samples, will become increasingly important as monitoring tools as the industrial footprint continues to expand in the Arctic. Text Arctic PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic PLOS ONE 10 6 e0127586 |
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Research Article Joly, Kyle Wasser, Samuel K. Booth, Rebecca Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter |
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Research Article |
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The winter diet of barren-ground caribou may affect adult survival, timing of parturition, neonatal survival, and postpartum mass. We used microhistological analyses and hormone levels in feces to determine sex-specific late-winter diets, pregnancy rates, group composition, and endocrine-based measures of physiological and nutritional stress. Lichens, which are highly digestible but contain little protein, dominated the diet (> 68%) but were less prevalent in the diets of pregnant females as compared to non-pregnant females and males. The amount of lichens in the diets of pregnant females decreased at higher latitudes and as winter progressed. Pregnancy rates (82.1%, 95% CI = 76.0 – 88.1%) of adult cows were within the expected range for a declining herd, while pregnancy status was not associated with lichen abundance in the diet. Most groups (80%) were of mixed sex. Male: female ratios (62:100) were not skewed enough to affect the decline. Levels of hormones indicating nutritional stress were detected in areas of low habitat quality and at higher latitudes. Levels of hormones indicated that physiological stress was greatest for pregnant cows, which faced the increasing demands of gestation in late winter. These fecal-based measures of diet and stress provided contextual information for the potential mechanisms of the ongoing decline. Non-invasive techniques, such as monitoring diets, pregnancy rates, sex ratios and stress levels from fecal samples, will become increasingly important as monitoring tools as the industrial footprint continues to expand in the Arctic. |
format |
Text |
author |
Joly, Kyle Wasser, Samuel K. Booth, Rebecca |
author_facet |
Joly, Kyle Wasser, Samuel K. Booth, Rebecca |
author_sort |
Joly, Kyle |
title |
Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter |
title_short |
Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter |
title_full |
Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter |
title_fullStr |
Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter |
title_full_unstemmed |
Non-Invasive Assessment of the Interrelationships of Diet, Pregnancy Rate, Group Composition, and Physiological and Nutritional Stress of Barren-Ground Caribou in Late Winter |
title_sort |
non-invasive assessment of the interrelationships of diet, pregnancy rate, group composition, and physiological and nutritional stress of barren-ground caribou in late winter |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464525/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061003 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127586 |
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Arctic |
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Arctic |
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Arctic |
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Arctic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464525/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127586 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication |
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127586 |
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PLOS ONE |
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10 |
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