Meeting Abstract
There is abundant evidence that the world’s climate is changing at an unprecedented rate with a general trend for an overall reduction in spring snow-cover extent and an earlier spring snowmelt. In the Arctic, however, were warming is occurring 2-3 times faster than the global average, microhabitat spatial variation is resulting in highly heterogeneous snow-cover patterns. Understanding the potential physiological mechanisms and their fitness consequences that may allow animals to cope with environmental changes has been cited as one of the biggest challenges of current biology. Our study is one of the first to integrate marked differences in the relationship between animal phenology and snow-cover regimes, with associated differences in body condition and stress physiology, reproductive success, and ultimately recruitment. We found that, compared to areas with early spring snowmelt, in areas with prolonged spring snow-cover 1) adult females were larger and in better body condition but had significantly higher stress hormone levels; 2) females had similar number and sized offspring, but that offspring stress hormone levels were higher; and 3) that offspring had reduced survival to hibernation. This study provides novel insights into how animals may cope with environmental change and discusses the significance of our findings within the broader context of changing animal-environment relationships.
