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The Effects of Population Density on Juvenile Growth Rate in White-Tailed Deer

Environmental Management volume 54, pages 897–907 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

Animal body size is driven by habitat quality, food availability, and nutrition. Adult size can relate to birth weight, to length of the ontogenetic growth period, and/or to the rate of growth. Data requirements are high for studying these growth mechanisms, but large datasets exist for some game species. In North America, large harvest datasets exist for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), but such data are collected under a variety of conditions and are generally dismissed for ecological research beyond local population and habitat management. We contend that such data are useful for studying the ecology of white-tailed deer growth and body size when analyzed at ordinal scale. In this paper, we test the response of growth rate to food availability by fitting a logarithmic equation that estimates growth rate only to harvest data from Fort Hood, Texas, and track changes in growth rate over time. Results of this ordinal scale model are compared to previously published models that include additional parameters, such as birth weight and adult weight. It is shown that body size responds to food availability by variation in growth rate. Models that estimate multiple parameters may not work with harvest data because they are prone to error, which renders estimates from complex models too variable to detect interannual changes in growth rate that this ordinal scale model captures. This model can be applied to harvest data, from which inferences about factors that influence animal growth and body size (e.g., habitat quality and nutritional availability) can be drawn.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Kevin Cagle (Directorate of Public Works, Natural Resources Branch, Fort Hood, Texas) for curating and providing the harvest records, Miguel Acevedo and David Hoeinghaus for their help in learning R programming, and Amy Hoffman for her editorial comments, and in kind support from the University of North Texas, Departments of Biological Science and Geography. Three external reviewers provided detailed comments that helped us greatly improve the paper.

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  1. Environmental and Forest Biology, SUNY-ESF, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States

    Brannon Barr

  2. Department of Geography, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, 76203, United States

    Steve Wolverton

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  1. Brannon Barr
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  2. Steve Wolverton
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Correspondence to Brannon Barr.

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Barr, B., Wolverton, S. The Effects of Population Density on Juvenile Growth Rate in White-Tailed Deer. Environmental Management 54, 897–907 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0322-y

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Keywords

  • Phenotypic plasticity
  • Ontogenetic growth rate
  • Maternal effects
  • Energetic trade-off
  • Intraspecific competition
  • Bias-variance trade-off