A comprehensive review of 20 years of research reveals how climate change is affecting deer populations across boreal and temperate regions, with insights that can help wildlife managers adapt their strategies to protect these animals.
The Shifting Fortunes of Deer
A warming planet presents both challenges and opportunities for deer species across the world. For some, warmer winters ¨make the impossible possible: to survive with less energy and find food more easily and cheaply. But for animals such as reindeer and caribou inhabiting the colder climes, the transformation could be well-nigh devastating.
The Missouri research finds that with the melt and refreeze of snow, these northern deer species are struggling as well with a thick layer of ice trapping the lichens they depend on. And, as drier, hotter summers edge the margins of some deer populations’ tolerable physiological range for heat increment parasite loads. In the short term, it condition them physically and in for the long term they could get pushed northwards to an extent that their distribution is shifted completely.
Adapting to a Warmer World
White-tailed deer not as defenseless on warming planet Others are figuring out how to adjust — for now. For example, some deer populations can take refuge in cooler habitats as well as decrease their daily activities during the warmest times of day to withstand hotter temperatures and lower moisture availability.
However, these coping strategies can also have knock-on effects on the dynamism of animal populations. For example, the body mass of moose and roe deer decreases in stress situations, which can affect entire generations and lead to a lower population development.
Another issue is the varying migration patterns of species like caribou and red deer. With warmer spring and fall temperatures and lessened snow cover, these animals are starting their migrations earlier in the spring and later in the fall. Eventually, they could even quit migrating entirely and screw up the balance of their ecosystems.
Conclusion
Wildlife managers and conservationists can find important insights in this 20-year review of research on how climate change affects deer populations. If we can determine how they respond to variable temperature and precipitation regimes, as well as extreme climate periods like what the recent winter represents, we can tailor our population management approaches on private lands where many of these deer populations reside in order for them to persist and hopefully thrive even as their habitat changes. Even though some deer are able to cope with warming temperatures in the short term, our research points to potential widespread shifts in distribution and population dynamics over the long term, making further study of climate change effects on Arctic terrestrial ecosystems all the more crucial.
