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Folders: ROOT > ScienceBase Catalog > National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers > National CASC > FY 2013 Projects > The Effects of Drought on Desert Bighorn Sheep ( Show direct descendants )

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_____The Effects of Drought on Desert Bighorn Sheep
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Abstract (from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148795): Arid climates have unpredictable precipitation patterns, and wildlife managers often provide supplemental water to help desert ungulates endure the hottest, driest periods. When surface water is unavailable, the only source of water for ungulates comes from the forage they consume, and they must make resourceful foraging decisions to meet their requirements. We compared two desert bighorn sheep ( Ovis canadensis nelsoni) populations in Arizona, USA: a treatment population with supplemental water removed during treatment, and a control population. We examined whether sheep altered their seasonal diets without supplemental water....
The responses of individual species to environmental changes can be manifested at multiple levels that range from individual-level (i.e., behavioral responses) to population-level (i.e., demographic) impacts. Major environmental changes that ultimately result in population level impacts are often first detected as individual-level responses. For example, herbivores respond to limited forage availability during drought periods by increasing the duration of foraging periods and expanding home range areas to compensate for the reduction in forage. However, if the individual-level responses are not sufficient to compensate for reduced forage availability, reduced survival and reproductive rates may result. We studied...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/oik.04282/abstract): Nutritional ecology forms the interface between environmental variability and large herbivore behaviour, life history characteristics, and population dynamics. Forage conditions in arid and semi-arid regions are driven by unpredictable spatial and temporal patterns in rainfall. Diet selection by herbivores should be directed towards overcoming the most pressing nutritional limitation (i.e. energy, protein [nitrogen, N], moisture) within the constraints imposed by temporal and spatial variability in forage conditions. We investigated the influence of precipitation-induced shifts in forage nutritional quality and subsequent large herbivore...
Abstract (from Ecosphere): When animals select areas to occupy, decisions involve trade‐offs between the fitness benefits of obtaining critical resources and minimizing costs of biotic and abiotic factors that constrain their use. These processes can be more dynamic and complex for species inhabiting desert environments, where highly variable spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation can create high intra‐ and inter‐annual variability in forage conditions and water availability, and thermal constraints can differ significantly among seasons and diel periods. We examined resource selection in desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis mexicana) in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona, USA, at multiple...
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