Pedersen Simen, Pedersen Hans Chr
Faculty of Applied Ecology, Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology, Campus Evenstad, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, N-2480 Koppang, Norway.
Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Høgskoleringen 9, N-7485 Trondheim, Norway.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Sep 8;11(9):2638. doi: 10.3390/ani11092638.
Mountain hares () in Scandinavia are classified as in the Norwegian and Swedish Redlists. This is due to a possible population decline witnessed during the last decades in Scandinavia. Competition between large herbivores and mountain hares is one of several hypotheses that has been put forward to explain this decline. In a cafeteria trial we investigate the effects of previous moose () winter browsing on the food selection (i.e., biomass consumed, bites per minute and bitediameter) of downy birch () and goat willow () by captive mountain hares. We find that mountain hares do not differentiate among previous browsing levels of downy birch, but have larger bite diameters of goat willow earlier browsed by moose, compared to non-browsed plants. Thus, effects of moose on mountain hare winter food quality seem to be limited. We highlight the need for studies focusing on (1) qualitative effects of moose browsing using wild mountain hares in a natural experimental design, and (2) quantitative effects of moose browsing on available mountain hare forage at a landscape scale during winter.
斯堪的纳维亚半岛的山兔（）在挪威和瑞典的红色名录中被列为 。这是由于在过去几十年里，斯堪的纳维亚半岛见证了其种群数量可能的下降。大型食草动物与山兔之间的竞争是为解释这种下降而提出的几种假说之一。在一项自助式试验中，我们研究了之前驼鹿（）冬季啃食对圈养山兔选择食用柔毛桦（）和北极柳（）的影响（即消耗的生物量、每分钟啃咬次数和啃咬直径）。我们发现，山兔在之前不同程度的柔毛桦啃食水平之间没有差异，但与未被啃食的植物相比，山兔对驼鹿较早啃食过的北极柳的啃咬直径更大。因此，驼鹿对山兔冬季食物质量的影响似乎有限。我们强调需要开展研究，重点关注：（1）在自然实验设计中使用野生山兔研究驼鹿啃食的定性影响；（2）在冬季景观尺度上研究驼鹿啃食对山兔可获得的草料的定量影响。
