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Searching for Phenotypic Variations in Yellow-Bellied Marmots

Paper Reviewed
Maldonado-Chaparro, A.A., Martin, J.G.A., Armitage, K.B., Oli, M.K. and Blumstein, D.T. 2015. Environmentally induced phenotypic variation in wild yellow-bellied marmots. Journal of Mammalogy 96: 269-278.

Maldonado-Chaparro et al. (2015) introduce their recently-published study of environmentally induced phenotypic variation by indicating that they "aimed to characterize patterns of phenotypic change in morphological (body mass), life-history (reproductive success and litter size), and social (embeddedness) traits of female yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) in response to climatic and social variation." This they did using data they had collected over a period of 36 years on a population of yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado, using "mixed effect models to explore phenotypically plastic responses," while testing for individual variations in mean trait values and plasticity.

This extended effort revealed, as the five researchers report, that "all examined traits were plastic, and the population's average plastic response often differed between spatially distinct colonies that varied systematically in timing of snowmelt, among age classes, and between females with different previous reproductive experiences." In addition, they similarly detected "individual differences in June mass and pup mass plasticity," all of which led them to conclude that in the case of yellow-bellied marmots, "plasticity plays a key role buffering the effects of continuous changes in environmental conditions."

Such findings suggest that if researchers look long and hard enough, as the authors of this paper appear to have done, there are often unmistakable signs of phenotypic plasticity enabling species of both plants and animals to survive various types of climatic change. And as revealed here, it would appear the yellow-bellied marmot is well-equipped to deal with changes in future climate, whatever those changes may be.

Posted 2 September 2015