TY - JOUR
T1 - Forest or meadow
T2 - The consequences of habitat for the condition of female arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii plesius)
AU - Werner, Jeffery R.
AU - Krebs, Charles J.
AU - Donker, Scott A.
AU - Sheriff, Michael J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Can. J. Zool. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/7/23
Y1 - 2015/7/23
N2 - Body condition of animals influences the likelihood of surviving harsh environmental conditions, successfully reproducing, and resisting disease. The sum of these individual components of fitness, in turn, have consequences for the growth and persistence of wildlife populations. Here we compared the body mass and condition of adult female arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii plesius (Osgood, 1900)), an obligate hibernator, in source and sink habitats. We tested the hypothesis that adult females would be in poorer condition in the boreal forest than in adjacent meadows. We found that, during spring, postpartum females in forests weighed less (405 ± 7 vs. 437 ± 11 g; mean ± SE) and were in poorer condition (mean (±SE) residual of mass over structural size = −11.0 ± 10.2 vs. 20.5 ± 6.1 g) compared with females in meadow-source habitat. However, by the onset of entrance into hibernation in August, forest squirrels had reached parity with meadow squirrels and no difference was found in mass (519 ± 13 vs. 520 ± 15 g; mean ± SE) or condition (residual index = −0.01 ± 0.01 vs. 0.03 ± 0.01; mean ± SE). We suggest that for squirrels in formerly occupied boreal forests, (i) poor spring body condition decreased reproductive success and (ii) achieving compensatory growth, via increased foraging, comes at the costs of higher predation risk. These costs likely contributed to the recent local extinction of arctic ground squirrels in boreal forest habitat.
AB - Body condition of animals influences the likelihood of surviving harsh environmental conditions, successfully reproducing, and resisting disease. The sum of these individual components of fitness, in turn, have consequences for the growth and persistence of wildlife populations. Here we compared the body mass and condition of adult female arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii plesius (Osgood, 1900)), an obligate hibernator, in source and sink habitats. We tested the hypothesis that adult females would be in poorer condition in the boreal forest than in adjacent meadows. We found that, during spring, postpartum females in forests weighed less (405 ± 7 vs. 437 ± 11 g; mean ± SE) and were in poorer condition (mean (±SE) residual of mass over structural size = −11.0 ± 10.2 vs. 20.5 ± 6.1 g) compared with females in meadow-source habitat. However, by the onset of entrance into hibernation in August, forest squirrels had reached parity with meadow squirrels and no difference was found in mass (519 ± 13 vs. 520 ± 15 g; mean ± SE) or condition (residual index = −0.01 ± 0.01 vs. 0.03 ± 0.01; mean ± SE). We suggest that for squirrels in formerly occupied boreal forests, (i) poor spring body condition decreased reproductive success and (ii) achieving compensatory growth, via increased foraging, comes at the costs of higher predation risk. These costs likely contributed to the recent local extinction of arctic ground squirrels in boreal forest habitat.
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U2 - 10.1139/cjz-2015-0100
DO - 10.1139/cjz-2015-0100
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84942921208
SN - 0008-4301
VL - 93
SP - 791
EP - 797
JO - Canadian journal of zoology
JF - Canadian journal of zoology
IS - 10
ER -