Abstract
Body mass is an important life history trait related to survival, mating success and fecundity in ungulates. Accordingly, we may expect that both body mass and reproductive measurements at the population level can be used as valid indices of population condition. However, several factors may modify the relationship between body mass and fecundity because of trade‐offs between maturity and early body growth, and varying mortality patterns and sex/age structure among populations. To evaluate the use of such indices for population monitoring and examine the current variation in moose Alces alces population condition in Fennoscandia, we studied the spatio‐temporal relationship between calving rate, twinning rate and average autumn calf body mass of moose in Norway and Finland. Calving rate and twinning rate were based on moose observations by hunters while body mass was the average carcass mass of harvested calves. We found a positive relationship between indices both within and among populations. Calves were on average heavier and the observed recruitment rates higher in Finland than in Norway, which is consistent with the higher moose density and presumably lower primary productivity (higher altitude) of moose ranges in Norway. We also found higher observed recruitment rates in populations and years with more even adult sex ratios (females per male) and low relative harvest rates of calves. This suggests that variation in recruitment rate is not only a matter of nutritional condition, but is also affected by varying hunting regulations and harvest structure. For monitoring purposes, we believe that twinning rate is best suited for ranking populations according to nutritional status as this index is closely related to fitness and is relatively insensitive to variation in perinatal and harvest mortality. However, variation in calf body mass may better reflect temporal variation in living conditions. This is because early body growth is sensitive to variation in food availability (and quality) and because body mass may respond more instantaneously than recruitment indices to adverse conditions. Accordingly, we found both calving rate and twinning rate to be best related to variation in mean calf body mass in the previous year.
Highlights
Body mass is an important life history trait related to survival, mating success and fecundity in ungulates
To evaluate the use of such indices for population monitoring and examine the current variation in moose Alces alces population condition in Fennoscandia, we studied the spatio-temporal relationship between calving rate, twinning rate and average autumn calf body mass of moose in Norway and Finland
This suggests that variation in recruitment rate is a matter of nutritional condition, but is affected by varying hunting regulations and harvest structure
Summary
Body mass is an important life history trait related to survival, mating success and fecundity in ungulates. This is because early body growth is sensitive to variation in food availability (and quality) and because body mass may respond more instantaneously than recruitment indices to adverse conditions We found both calving rate and twinning rate to be best related to variation in mean calf body mass in the previous year. Females may mature at different ages and sizes among populations, leading to varying relationships between juvenile size, age at first reproduction and adult fecundity at the population level (Stearns 1992, Garel et al 2009, Monteith et al 2009). Small females tend to produce smaller offspring, they may still produce large litters when the environmental conditions are good (e.g. Monteith et al 2009)
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