Caveats
Our research focussed on a heavily developed landscape in the western
Nearctic boreal forest of Alberta, Canada. Extrapolating to other
landscapes in this region should not be done without future research to
understand the range of inference. In their province-wide analysis,
(Dawe, Bayne & Boutin 2014;
Dawe & Boutin 2016) concluded that deer
expansion is likely facilitated in large part by climate change as the
metabolic costs of cold temperatures and especially deep snow are
ameliorated by contemporary mild winters. Evidence at landscape scales
suggests climate is a contributory mechanism but abundant nutritional
forage is pivotal for deer populations
(Fisher et al. 2020), and
historically the northern boreal forest has been dominated by largely
inedible conifer (Fisher & Wilkinson
2005; Pickell et al. 2015). We
contend forage subsidies induced by landscape change play a large role
not yet disentangled from climate change; indeed it is likely the two
act synergistically.