| Title: | Timing of population peaks of Norway lemming in relation to atmospheric pressure: A hypothesis to explain the spatial synchrony |
| Address: | "Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, N-1432 As, Norway" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2045-2322 (Electronic) 2045-2322 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Herbivore cycles are often synchronized over larger areas than what could be explained by dispersal. In Norway, the 3-4 year lemming cycle usually show no more than a one-year time lag between different regions, despite distances of up to 1000 km. If important food plants are forced to reallocate defensive proteins in years with high seed production, spatially synchronized herbivore outbreaks may be due to climate-synchronized peaks in flowering. Because lemming peaks are expected to occur one year after a flowering peak, and the formation of flower buds is induced in the year before flowering, a two-year time lag between flower-inducing climate events and lemming peaks is predicted. At Hardangervidda, South Norway, the probability that a year was a population peak year of lemming during 1920-2014 increased with increasing midsummer atmospheric pressure two years earlier, even when the number of years since the previous peak was accounted for" |
| Keywords: | "Animals Arvicolinae/*physiology Atmospheric Pressure Behavior, Animal Climate Change Herbivory Norway Population Density Population Dynamics;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineSelas, Vidar eng England 2016/06/02 Sci Rep. 2016 Jun 1; 6:27225. doi: 10.1038/srep27225" |
