Fun with Science Club®


			For deer, warm winters are nothing to celebrate. Beth Tyler 06.01.01 Scandinavia is an area in north Europe that includes the countries Norway and Sweden. In recent years, the winters in Scandinavia have been getting warmer. This warming trend is probably a result of global warming due to human activities. Some scientists in Scandinavia wanted to know the effect warmer winters had on deer populations. They used information collected by wildlife boards since 1971. When a deer was killed in the wild, wildlife workers weighed the deer and took its measurements. They could know the deer’s age by looking at its teeth. The scientists used these data and compared the deer’s weight and size with temperature records from the year it was born. They found that deer born after warm winters were smaller and weighed less than deer born after cold winters. Warmer winters change the amount of snow and the timing of plant growth, making pregnant deer in warm winters unable to get the healthiest foods. Due to that, the baby they have the following spring is smaller than average. Because smaller deer have fewer children and live shorter lives, warmer temperatures in Scandinavia decrease the number of deer.


			Post, Eric, Nils Chr. Stenseth, Rolf Langvatn, and Jean-Marc Fromentin. 1997. Global climate change and phenotypic variation among red deer cohorts. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 264: 1317-1324.