Altitude, latitude and climate zone as determinants of mountain hare (Lepus timidus) coat colour change.

ABSTRACT: Local adaptation to annually changing environments has evolved in numerous species. Seasonal coat colour change is an adaptation that has evolved in multiple mammal and bird species occupying areas that experience seasonal snow cover. It has a critical impact on fitness as predation risk may increase when an individual is mismatched against its habitat's background colour. In this paper, we investigate the correlation between landscape covariates and moult timing in a native winter-adapted herbivore, the mountain hare (Lepus timidus), throughout Norway. Data was collected between 2011 and 2019 at 678 camera trap locations deployed across an environmental gradient. Based on this data, we created a Bayesian multinomial logistic regression model that quantified the correlations between

SUBMITTER: Stokes AW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10542609 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature