---
title: "How much do moose eat?"
subtitle: "Part 3 in a series on Model Parameterization"
date: today
categories: [Model Parameterization, iLand, BITE]
date-modified: last-modified
draft: true
bibliography: references.bib
---

# How much do moose eat?

Most of our studies on moose browsing come from wildlife ecology studies

[@renecker1985] tracked two free-range moose cows to study their voluntary intake over two years. The authors use two methods for estimating dry matter consumption: the ratio technique (fecal excretion vs the indigestibility of the diet) and the bite-count approach (measuring bite rate, simulated bite size and total foraging time). Summer consumption was 129 grams per kg of body weightˆ0.75 (per month I think), mid-winter dropped to 38 grams / kg BMˆ0.75 (again, per month?).

Table of moose intake results

```         
- penned Alaska moose (Schwartz et al. 1981)

- penned and wild younger moose on Isle Royale (Miquelle 1979)
```

[@renecker1985] - Summer consumption was 129 grams per kg of body weightˆ0.75 (per month I think), mid-winter dropped to 38 grams / kg BMˆ0.75 (again, per month?).

\- average daily consumption in mid-july = 9,938 (SD 836) grams

\- net energy requirement for maintaining free-range \[\[moose\]\] cows = 399 KJ / kg of BMˆ

[@mcart2009]

\## Takeaways

\- summer dietary nitrogen availability is a nutrient constraint on moose

\- Denali cows were simulated to gain 4-6% of body mass across the summer

\- moose reach peak body mass in fall (Mautz 1978, Adamczewski et al. 1987, Schwartz et al. 1987)

```         
- reproductive success linked to august body mass (Cameron et al. 1993, Schwartz and Hundertmark 1993, Cameron and Ver Hoef 1994, Barrett 1982)
```

# More resources

## References

## Session Info

```{r session info}
sessionInfo()
```