Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer
The moose (Alces alces) is a dominant large mammalian herbivore in the world's boreal zones. Moose exert significant browsing impacts on forest vegetation and are therefore often at the centre of wildlife-forestry conflicts. Consequently, understanding the drivers of their foraging behaviour is...
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ftslunivuppsala:oai:pub.epsilon.slu.se:22768 2023-05-15T13:13:44+02:00 Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer Spitzer, Robert Coissac, Eric Felton, Annika Fohringer, Christian Juvany Canovas, Laura Landman, Marietjie Singh, Navinder Taberlet, Pierre Widemo, Fredrik Cromsigt, Joris 2021 application/pdf https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22768/ https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22768/1/spitzer_r_et_al_210317.pdf en eng eng https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22768/1/spitzer_r_et_al_210317.pdf Spitzer, Robert and Coissac, Eric and Felton, Annika and Fohringer, Christian and Juvany Canovas, Laura and Landman, Marietjie and Singh, Navinder and Taberlet, Pierre and Widemo, Fredrik and Cromsigt, Joris (2021). Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer. Forest Ecology and Management. 480 , 118768 [Research article] Forest Science Ecology Research article NonPeerReviewed 2021 ftslunivuppsala 2022-01-09T19:16:06Z The moose (Alces alces) is a dominant large mammalian herbivore in the world's boreal zones. Moose exert significant browsing impacts on forest vegetation and are therefore often at the centre of wildlife-forestry conflicts. Consequently, understanding the drivers of their foraging behaviour is crucial for mitigating such conflicts. Management of moose in large parts of its range currently largely ignores the fact that moose foraging is influenced by increasing populations of sympatric deer species. In such multispecies systems, resource partitioning may be driven by foraging height and bite size. Feeding competition with smaller species might replace larger species from the field layer and drive them towards higher foraging strata offering larger bites. This bite size hypothesis has been well documented for African ungulate communities. Based on a large diet DNA metabarcoding dataset we suggest that feeding competition from three smaller deer species (red deer Cervus elaphus, fallow deer Dama dama, and roe deer Capreolus capreolus) over Vaccinium shrubs in the forest field layer might drive moose towards increasing consumption of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) in Sweden. We found that in areas of high deer density, moose diets consistently contained less Vaccinium and higher proportions of pine over three spring periods. Utilization of these food items by the smaller deer species was either unaffected by deer density or, for Vaccinium showed the opposite pattern to moose, i.e., increases of proportions in the diet of roe and red deer with increasing deer density. Availability of pine and Vaccinium, measured as proportion of available bites, did not explain the observed patterns. Our results suggest that managing key food items like Vaccinium and the populations of smaller deer may play an important role in controlling browsing impacts of moose on pine. Article in Journal/Newspaper Alces alces Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU): Epsilon Open Archive |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU): Epsilon Open Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftslunivuppsala |
language |
English |
topic |
Forest Science Ecology |
spellingShingle |
Forest Science Ecology Spitzer, Robert Coissac, Eric Felton, Annika Fohringer, Christian Juvany Canovas, Laura Landman, Marietjie Singh, Navinder Taberlet, Pierre Widemo, Fredrik Cromsigt, Joris Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
topic_facet |
Forest Science Ecology |
description |
The moose (Alces alces) is a dominant large mammalian herbivore in the world's boreal zones. Moose exert significant browsing impacts on forest vegetation and are therefore often at the centre of wildlife-forestry conflicts. Consequently, understanding the drivers of their foraging behaviour is crucial for mitigating such conflicts. Management of moose in large parts of its range currently largely ignores the fact that moose foraging is influenced by increasing populations of sympatric deer species. In such multispecies systems, resource partitioning may be driven by foraging height and bite size. Feeding competition with smaller species might replace larger species from the field layer and drive them towards higher foraging strata offering larger bites. This bite size hypothesis has been well documented for African ungulate communities. Based on a large diet DNA metabarcoding dataset we suggest that feeding competition from three smaller deer species (red deer Cervus elaphus, fallow deer Dama dama, and roe deer Capreolus capreolus) over Vaccinium shrubs in the forest field layer might drive moose towards increasing consumption of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) in Sweden. We found that in areas of high deer density, moose diets consistently contained less Vaccinium and higher proportions of pine over three spring periods. Utilization of these food items by the smaller deer species was either unaffected by deer density or, for Vaccinium showed the opposite pattern to moose, i.e., increases of proportions in the diet of roe and red deer with increasing deer density. Availability of pine and Vaccinium, measured as proportion of available bites, did not explain the observed patterns. Our results suggest that managing key food items like Vaccinium and the populations of smaller deer may play an important role in controlling browsing impacts of moose on pine. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Spitzer, Robert Coissac, Eric Felton, Annika Fohringer, Christian Juvany Canovas, Laura Landman, Marietjie Singh, Navinder Taberlet, Pierre Widemo, Fredrik Cromsigt, Joris |
author_facet |
Spitzer, Robert Coissac, Eric Felton, Annika Fohringer, Christian Juvany Canovas, Laura Landman, Marietjie Singh, Navinder Taberlet, Pierre Widemo, Fredrik Cromsigt, Joris |
author_sort |
Spitzer, Robert |
title |
Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
title_short |
Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
title_full |
Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
title_fullStr |
Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
title_full_unstemmed |
Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
title_sort |
small shrubs with large importance? smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over vaccinium shrubs in the field layer |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22768/ https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22768/1/spitzer_r_et_al_210317.pdf |
genre |
Alces alces |
genre_facet |
Alces alces |
op_relation |
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22768/1/spitzer_r_et_al_210317.pdf Spitzer, Robert and Coissac, Eric and Felton, Annika and Fohringer, Christian and Juvany Canovas, Laura and Landman, Marietjie and Singh, Navinder and Taberlet, Pierre and Widemo, Fredrik and Cromsigt, Joris (2021). Small shrubs with large importance? Smaller deer may increase the moose-forestry conflict through feeding competition over Vaccinium shrubs in the field layer. Forest Ecology and Management. 480 , 118768 [Research article] |
_version_ |
1766260113366056960 |