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> snow goose and caribou experiments
olivia
post Aug 1 2005, 03:08 AM
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do you think that the effect on the habitat will be much different for the snow geese than the caribou or that they might be similar?
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Brian_Person
post Sep 9 2005, 05:49 PM
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Hi Olivia.

Thanks for the question. Yes I think that the effect of snow goose grazing will impact the habitat differently than the interactions caribou have with their habitat.

When geese arrive to the breeding grounds in the spring they grub (dig in the soil with their bill) for below ground tissues. When they successfully find plant tissues and eat them they kill the plant. Importantly, geese are very concentrated on their breeding grounds and can remove allot of plants from their environment. Since they nest in coastal areas erosion increases because there are no plant roots to stabilize the soils. This is a concern because coastal erosion along arctic coastlines is increasing in magnitude due to changes in climate.

Once the vegetation begins to green-up (grow) snow geese graze the above-ground plant tissues of sedges and grasses. This is when their grazing becomes similar to caribou. In general, removing the top portion of grasses and sedges is not as detrimental to these plants because their genetically active tissues are not removed by the herbivore and the plant can still continue to photosynthesize (fix atmospheric carbon into plant tissues) and thus grow new leaves or tillers.

Another difference between caribou and geese is that caribou tend to be horizontal feeders. What I mean by that is that they tend to move greater distances while they feed when compared to geese. This means that fewer plants in a given patch are grazed and the impact to their habitat is diluted across a greater area. This can change when their populations are high and caribou prefer to feed on lichens which are very slow growing.

I hope this answers your question and I hope that it makes you ask a few more questions too!

Brian
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