Browsing by Subject "maternal behavior"

Individuals of long-lived animal species can improve their reproductive success through experience. While individual’s resources available for survival and reproduction decrease toward the end of its lifespan through senescence, terminal investment hypothesis predicts the less likely old individuals reproduce again the more they invest in their current offspring. Experience gained through a long lifespan might have an important role in changing behavior to optimize the use of resources and compensate the effects of senescence. In addition, behavioral plasticity allows animals to respond changes in their habitat within much shorter timespan than on an evolutionary timescale. Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) is a wild subspecies of reindeer. It is only found in Svalbard, a remote archipelago in the Arctic with extreme weather conditions rapidly changing due to climate change. It has been isolated at least 5000 years and adapted to a barren habitat with nearly no hunting, predation or harassment of flying insects. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of age and a calf at heel in Svalbard reindeer females’ maternal, vigilant, and social behavior and time budget in the light of life history theory and its senescence and terminal investment hypotheses. I carried out the field work for the study in two periods in summer in Semmeldalen valley and the south-western part of Reindalen valley on the island of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. I collected behavioral data on marked individuals by instant scan sampling and focal watch methods, wrote observations down manually and later fed them into computer. In addition, I have used birth year data collected by the long-term monitoring program by the Norwegian Polar Institute. I used generalized linear mixed models to analyze the effects of age and calf at heel to the behavior of females. The main results include that young dams maintained shorter distance to their calf in July than in August, and old females were less vigilant. Younger dams and older females without calves were in smaller groups than older dams and younger females without calves. In addition, females with calves spend proportionately less time lying down than females without calves. Dams maintained a longer distance to the nearest neighbor than females without calves. Older dams spend proportionately more time feeding and in groups in August than younger dams. These results show that the age and calf at heel do play a role in the behavior of Svalbard reindeer females and the effect varies over the course of the short Arctic summer. Experience may make older females more effective mothers by optimize the use of resources for example from vigilance to feeding in a predator-free environment. On the other hand, senescence may affect the amount of energy females can spend on their calves, potentially influencing their survival.