Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Push or pull: sagebrush scent cues as a driver of mule deer migratory behavior in a changing world

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2025. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to biology in innovative ways. Across the planet, mammals migrate to track seasonal changes in food resources.

These migrations allow large populations of mammals to persist in harsh environments where food is seasonally limited. However, it is still unclear what signals migrating mammals use to track changes in food resources. This uncertainty makes it difficult to predict how changing environmental conditions can affect migrations.

Many species of mammals use plant odors to locate food and assess food quality, and plant odors also change with season and environmental conditions. This research seeks to determine how seasonal and environmental shifts in plant odors provide cues that inform mammal migrations. The fellow will study whether plant odors are the link between mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) migrations and changing food quality in Wyoming, USA.

Mule deer are an ideal species for this study because they effectively track shifts in food quality during spring migrations. By identifying how food quality, plant odors, and mammal movements are influenced by varying environmental conditions, the results of this project will help conserve migrations, which are being lost or threatened worldwide.

The fellow will integrate data from plant chemical analyses, mule deer movement (via camera traps and GPS collars), foraging experiments, and remote sensing methods to address the following objectives: (1) examine if mule deer migratory behavior is related to shifts in the type or total abundance of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that plants emit as phenology changes, and (2) discern which plant VOCs provide attractant or deterrent cues to foraging mule deer. The fellow will then develop a predictive model using remotely-sensed vegetation indices, VOC data, climate variables, and mule deer GPS data to determine how environmental variability alters VOC cues and influences mule deer movement throughout entire migratory landscapes.

The fellow will expand their research skillset by analyzing GPS movement data via resource selection functions and step selection functions, and by using advanced volatile chemistry methods to collect and quantify plant VOCs. This project will also engage students (ranging from high school to early graduate school) throughout North Dakota in ecological work, and the fellow will provide students with skills and training in wildlife conservation and management.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.