Vulpes vulpes and Vulpes lagopus morphometric data_Canadian low Arctic
Description
This data set contains morphometry data and individual characteristics of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and Arctic (Vulpes lagopus) legally harvested in 2017 and 2018 in and around Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. This area is located near treeline, on the western coast of the Hudson Bay, and its winters are characterized by harsh abiotic conditions and prey scarcity. A red fox population became established on the coastal tundra, possibly competing with the native Arctic fox. We used these data to quantify species-size difference to predict the potential strength of interference competition, notably the likelihood of the larger competitor escalating interference to intraguild killing. Size difference was intermediate ( see Donadio & Buskirk, 2006) in body mass and linear dimension, which would favor strong interference competition over limited resources, with a high risk of red foxes escalating interference to intraguild killing. Animals were aged using canine cementum annuli count (Matson’s lab, Manhattan, Montana, USA). Note that we only sent canines with a proportional size of pulp cavity compared to tooth width of 40% and less, a threshold under which we considered animals were subadults.
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Steps to reproduce
The Word document describes how to reproduce our steps. *Please note: age needs to be explicitly converted to a factor to be used as a random effect, since R will naturally consider the age column as an integer upon upload.
Institutions
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Funding
Churchill Northern Studies Centre
Manitoba Fish and Wildlife Enhancement Fund
University of Manitoba Fieldwork Support Program
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Oakes-Riewe Aboriginal-Environmental Studies Research Award