U.S.-Sweden Cooperative Research: Ecological Adaptation Concerning Sodium Usage by Large Mammals Under Seasonally Stressful Environmental Conditions

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This award will support collaborative research between Professor Peter A. Jordan, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, and one of his graduate students with Drs. Ake Pehrson and Goren Cederlund, Grimso Wildlife Research Station, Riddarhyttan, Sweden. They will examine theoretical and applied questions concerning the amount of sodium in the diets of wild ungulates, particulary moose. Dr. Jordan's earlier work has shown that sodium may be a limiting resource for moose and other herbivores in North American boreal regions, because of its scarcity in normal terrestrial forages. Dr. Jordan has recently been studying sodium relationships in these animals with his Swedish counterparts under natural conditions and those in which sodium sources (salt blocks) are provided by the researchers. This research will be concerned with how large mammalian herbivore scope with cold periods when plants which provide sodium are scarce. The research station at Grimso provides excellent facilities to monitor animal behavior by telemetry and to conduct feeding experiments with captive moose. The proposed cooperation presents the U.S. investigator with an opportunity to use highly specialized facilities abroad that are not easily available to him in the U.S. The researchers will carry out physiological examinations of the animals, as well as conduct population censuses to understand better how large animals survive under stressful environmental, conditions.