CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 45Wildlife Ecology and ConservationAnimal Ecology and Behavior StudiesRangeland and Wildlife Management

Effects of grizzly bear predation on muskoxen in northeastern Alaska

Arthur, Stephen M., Vecchio, Patricia A. Del·2017·Ursus
DOI 10.2192/ursu-d-16-00023.1
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) are thought to be highly effective at defending themselves from predators. However, a decline in muskox abundance in northeastern Alaska, USA, that coincided with several instances of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) predation observed during 2000–2006 raised concerns about the effects of predation on this population. In response, from 2007 to 2011 we estimated rates of reproduction and survival and determined rates and causes of muskox mortality on the arctic coastal plain of northeastern Alaska. Annual counts of muskox abundance (x̄ = 191) and estimates of population growth (x̄ = 0.94) indicated a stable or slowly declining population. Annual natality ranged from 0.45 to 0.86 (x̄ = 0.68) births/adult female, whereas annual survival ranged from 0.40 to 0.63 (x̄ = 0.49) for calves and from 0.73 to 0.91 (x̄ = 0.83) for adult females. Predation by grizzly bears was the most common cause of death among cases where a cause could be identified, accounting for 58% and 62% of deaths of calves and adults, respectively. Most bear predation occurred during late winter and spring when little other food was available to bears. The importance of predation compared with other mortality factors, and the change from a growing to a declining muskox population, suggest a change in either predator abundance or behavior. There is no evidence that bear abundance changed dramatically during this period, but abundance of moose (Alces alces) and caribou (Rangifer tarandus) declined substantially in the area where the muskox decline was most pronounced. This suggests bears may have increased predation on muskoxen in response to reduced availability of other ungulates. Maintaining diversity of native ungulates may help bears cope with the natural fluctuations in prey abundance often seen in arctic ecosystems.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2192/ursu-d-16-00023.1

Cites

37 of 37 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Documentation of grizzly bear predation on muskoxen, originally considered sporadic, is increasing in some regions.

    “Now, documentation of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) predation, originally considered a sporadic occurrence, is increasing in some regions (Gunn and Adamczewski 2003; Arthur and Del Vecchio 2017).”

    From Muskox status, recent variation, and uncertain future (2020) · cites this paper as Arthur and Del Vecchio 2017

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Arthur, S. M., & Vecchio, P. A. D.
Affiliations
Alaska Department of Fish and Game (US)
ORCID
Arthur, Stephen M.
Venue
Ursus
Publisher
Ursus
Published
2017-07
Volume
28
Issue
1
Pages
81-91
ISSN
  • 1537-6176 (ISSN-L)
  • 1938-5439
DOI
10.2192/ursu-d-16-00023.1
OpenAlex
W2740885337
Cited by
45
References
37
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1
FWCI
7.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.bioone.org/page/resources/researchers/rights_and_permissions (tdm)
Locations
  • Ursus (publishedVersion)
  • BioOne Complete (BioOne) (submittedVersion)
Funders
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
Keywords
Ovibos moschatus, brown bear, population decline (ecology), birth rate, survival rate, predator-prey interactions, Arctic Coastal Plain, northeastern Alaska

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review