Is Anthropogenic Habitat Change The Driving Force Of Rapid Evolution Of Southeastern U.S. Coastal Deer Populations?

Abstract

Many factors, such as genetics, food availability and the exact food species, can
affect the growth rate and asymptotic size of animals. Since the I 960's, the coastal areas
and islands in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina have become vacation
destinations with large and lavish resort communities built to accommodate the large
number of visitors to areas that were once called home by just a small number of
residents. These developments brought with them non-native plants and improved soil
quality for both native and non-native plants. During this same time period, the whitetailed
deer ( Odocoileus virginianus) native to the areas began to increase in size, as
measured by skull size, which is a phenotypically stable character in mammals. The
purpose of this project is to determine whether the increased size of deer is due to higher
nutritional values of non-native plants and whether deer diets have shifted to include
plants of higher nutritional content. Analysis proceeded by comparing the rumen
contents of deer collected from the early 1970's to the late 1990's in comparable areas
including developed, managed, and undeveloped habitats. The research showed that
while the diet of deer has changed, the change is too minimal to have caused such a
dramatic change in size. It is possible that the change has been caused macronutrients,
such as calcium, phosphorus, and potassium.

Date of Award	2011
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University