Maternal carryover, winter severity, and brown bear abundance relate to elk demographics.

ABSTRACT: Ungulates are key components of ecosystems due to their effects on lower trophic levels, role as prey, and value for recreational and subsistence harvests. Understanding factors that drive ungulate population dynamics can inform protection of important habitat and successful management of populations. To ascertain correlates of ungulate population dynamics, we evaluated the effects of five non-exclusive hypotheses on ungulate abundance and recruitment: winter severity, spring nutritional limitation (spring bottleneck), summer-autumn maternal condition carryover, predation, and timber harvest. We used weather, reconstructed brown bear (Ursus arctos) abundance, and timber harvest data to estimate support for these hypotheses on early calf recruitment (calves per 100 adult females in July-Aug

SUBMITTER: Schooler SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9521920 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature