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Research project
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| Demography and dynamics of an arctic foxes population on Bylot Island, Nunavut |
| | The terrestrial Arctic is very unproductive because of a very limited photosynthetic activity. Also the theory of ecosystems exploitation (Oksanen et al. In 1981) predicts that the higher trophic level (predators) should be absent in the Canadian High Arctic. However, the arctic fox survives, raising questions about the demographic and ecological adaptations developed by this predator. Moreover, the Arctic fox lives in a very variable environment (intra-and inter annual variability in prey availability; Angerbjorn et al., 1999, Eide et al. 2004), it is a very interesting model to better understand the links between the demographics of a population and environmental factors which it is subjected. An arctic fox population has been monitored since 1996 (Individuals Marking since 2004) on Bylot Island, Nunavut (Careau et al. 2008), which offers the possibility to measure the main demographic parameters of a population of this species (recruitment rate, survival, etc.) and compare them with those of other carnivorous mammals studied elsewhere in the world. The PhD project will have three main objectives: 1 - develop and apply statistical approaches to describe the population dynamics; 2 - compare the population dynamics with other populations of the same or different species; 3 - testing hypotheses about the ecological factors that explain the observed demographic characteristics. The research will be based on a terrain-monitoring of 18 years (1996-2013), whose 10 years (2004-2013) involving the marking of individuals. I will participate to the terrain-monitoring in the last two years of this time series. My fieldwork will be necessary to increase the strength of the database and to understand the techniques to collect demographic data that I use and the ecological factors that influence the demography and population dynamics. This long-term monitoring involves techniques such as capture (about 30 young adults and 20-40 year), marking and recapture of individuals, their observation and satellite transmitters (Tarroux et al. 2010).
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