Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers

Based Studies of Yellow - Bellied

Some fundamental biological questions can be answered only by taking an “ecology of place” approach—by studying a focal system over long periods of time. One of these fundamental questions is the degree to which population dynamics are a function of social behavior. Long-term studies of yellowbellied marmot populations of known pedigree have examined the role of kinship in social behavior and o...

Olfactory Predator Discrimination in Yellow-Bellied Marmots

Many mammals discriminate the scents of their predators (reviewed in Apfelbach et al. 2005) and this trait may be heritable (there is genetic variation in the degree of response to synthetic fox [Vulpes vulpes] odor in rats [Rattus norvegicus], Rosen et al. 2006). The mechanism underlying this identification may be relatively experience-independent, or it may rely on specific experience with pr...

Why do yellow-bellied marmots call?

Correspondence and present address: D. T. Blumstein, Schools of Behavioural and Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia (email: [email protected]). K. B. Armitage is at the Department of Systematics and Ecology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, U.S.A. When we see animals do things that are potentially risky, such as alarm calling around predator...

Individual differences and reproductive success in yellow-bellied marmots

Social Effects on Emergence from Hibernation in Yellow-bellied Marmots

The date that yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) emerge at a site in Colorado has been used as evidence that climate is affecting hibernating species. Over 6 springs, and at 16 marmot groups, the date of 1st emergence of males, females, and the group as a whole was recorded. Emergence date of males was a function of the number of males in a group (a metric of reproductive competition...