Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-86720-2
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Funding
- Herchel Smith Fellowship
- Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology
- Sarah and Daniel Hrdy Fellowship (2015-2016 at Harvard University OEB)
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This study utilized relocation datasets of Eurasian roe deer to show that scarce snow cover and increased feeding site distribution interacted to elevate the elevation of winter range limits, a trend predicted to continue under climate change. Additionally, roe deer have shifted their feeding site usage from deep snow conditions historically to a wider range of snow conditions contemporarily, resulting in reduced inter-annual variability in space use patterns during specific months.
Ungulates in alpine ecosystems are constrained by winter harshness through resource limitation and direct mortality from weather extremes. However, little empirical evidence has definitively established how current climate change and other anthropogenic modifications of resource availability affect ungulate winter distribution, especially at their range limits. Here, we used a combination of historical (1997-2002) and contemporary (2012-2015) Eurasian roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) relocation datasets that span changes in snowpack characteristics and two levels of supplemental feeding to compare and forecast probability of space use at the species' altitudinal range limit. Scarcer snow cover in the contemporary period interacted with the augmented feeding site distribution to increase the elevation of winter range limits, and we predict this trend will continue under climate change. Moreover, roe deer have shifted from historically using feeding sites primarily under deep snow conditions to contemporarily using them under a wider range of snow conditions as their availability has increased. Combined with scarcer snow cover during December, January, and April, this trend has reduced inter-annual variability in space use patterns in these months. These spatial responses to climate- and artificial resource-provisioning shifts evidence the importance of these changing factors in shaping large herbivore spatial distribution and, consequently, ecosystem dynamics.
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