Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 20, Issue 6, Pages 741-750Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12772
Keywords
Forage maturation hypothesis; green wave hypothesis; migration; mule deer; normalised difference vegetation index; Odocoileus hemionus; phenology; resource landscape; ungulate; Wyoming
Categories
Funding
- Wyoming Game and Fish Department
- Muley Fanatic Foundation
- Wyoming Governor's Big Game License Coalition
- Bowhunters of Wyoming
- Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust
- Knobloch Family Foundation
- Boone and Crockett Club
- Wyoming Outfitters and Guides Association
- US Bureau of Land Management and Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board
- U.S. Geological Survey Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative
- U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
- University of Wyoming's Berry Fellowship
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture postdoctoral fellowship [201401928]
- Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Zoology and Physiology
- Program in Ecology at the University of Wyoming
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The Green Wave Hypothesis posits that herbivore migration manifests in response to waves of spring green-up (i.e. green-wave surfing). Nonetheless, empirical support for the Green Wave Hypothesis is mixed, and a framework for understanding variation in surfing is lacking. In a population of migratory mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), 31% surfed plant phenology in spring as well as a theoretically perfect surfer, and 98% surfed better than random. Green-wave surfing varied among individuals and was unrelated to age or energetic state. Instead, the greenscape, which we define as the order, rate and duration of green-up along migratory routes, was the primary factor influencing surfing. Our results indicate that migratory routes are more than a link between seasonal ranges, and they provide an important, but often overlooked, foraging habitat. In addition, the spatiotemporal configuration of forage resources that propagate along migratory routes shape animal movement and presumably, energy gains during migration.
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