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Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating

BACKGROUND: The moose (Alces alces) is an intensively managed keystone species in Fennoscandia. Several aspects of reproduction in moose have not been fully elucidated, including puberty, timing of mating and oestrus, and the length of the oestrus period. These aspects are relevant for an adaptive m...

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Autores principales: Malmsten, Jonas, Söderquist, Lennart, Thulin, Carl-Gustaf, Gavier Widén, Dolores, Yon, Lisa, Hutchings, Michael R, Dalin, Anne-Marie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3998218/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24735953
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-56-23
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author Malmsten, Jonas
Söderquist, Lennart
Thulin, Carl-Gustaf
Gavier Widén, Dolores
Yon, Lisa
Hutchings, Michael R
Dalin, Anne-Marie
author_facet Malmsten, Jonas
Söderquist, Lennart
Thulin, Carl-Gustaf
Gavier Widén, Dolores
Yon, Lisa
Hutchings, Michael R
Dalin, Anne-Marie
author_sort Malmsten, Jonas
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The moose (Alces alces) is an intensively managed keystone species in Fennoscandia. Several aspects of reproduction in moose have not been fully elucidated, including puberty, timing of mating and oestrus, and the length of the oestrus period. These aspects are relevant for an adaptive management of moose with respect to harvest, population size, demography and environmental conditions. Therefore, an investigation of female moose reproduction was conducted during the moose-hunting period in southern Sweden from 2008 to 2011. RESULTS: A total of 250 reproductive organs and information on carcass weight and age was collected from four different hunting areas (provinces of Öland, Småland, Södermanland, and Västergötland) in southern Sweden. The results showed that puberty in female moose varied with carcass weight, age, and time of season. The period for oestrous/mating lasted from about mid September to the beginning of November. CONCLUSIONS: The oestrus period (predominantly for heifers) is longer than previously reported and was not finished when the hunting period started. Sampling the uterine cervix to detect spermatozoa was a useful method to determine if mating had occurred. To avoid hunting of moose during oestrus, we suggest that the hunting period should be postponed by at least 14 days in southern Sweden.
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spelling pubmed-39982182014-04-25 Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating Malmsten, Jonas Söderquist, Lennart Thulin, Carl-Gustaf Gavier Widén, Dolores Yon, Lisa Hutchings, Michael R Dalin, Anne-Marie Acta Vet Scand Research BACKGROUND: The moose (Alces alces) is an intensively managed keystone species in Fennoscandia. Several aspects of reproduction in moose have not been fully elucidated, including puberty, timing of mating and oestrus, and the length of the oestrus period. These aspects are relevant for an adaptive management of moose with respect to harvest, population size, demography and environmental conditions. Therefore, an investigation of female moose reproduction was conducted during the moose-hunting period in southern Sweden from 2008 to 2011. RESULTS: A total of 250 reproductive organs and information on carcass weight and age was collected from four different hunting areas (provinces of Öland, Småland, Södermanland, and Västergötland) in southern Sweden. The results showed that puberty in female moose varied with carcass weight, age, and time of season. The period for oestrous/mating lasted from about mid September to the beginning of November. CONCLUSIONS: The oestrus period (predominantly for heifers) is longer than previously reported and was not finished when the hunting period started. Sampling the uterine cervix to detect spermatozoa was a useful method to determine if mating had occurred. To avoid hunting of moose during oestrus, we suggest that the hunting period should be postponed by at least 14 days in southern Sweden. BioMed Central 2014-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3998218/ /pubmed/24735953 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-56-23 Text en Copyright © 2014 Malmsten et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Malmsten, Jonas
Söderquist, Lennart
Thulin, Carl-Gustaf
Gavier Widén, Dolores
Yon, Lisa
Hutchings, Michael R
Dalin, Anne-Marie
Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
title Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
title_full Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
title_fullStr Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
title_full_unstemmed Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
title_short Reproductive characteristics in female Swedish moose (Alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
title_sort reproductive characteristics in female swedish moose (alces alces), with emphasis on puberty, timing of oestrus, and mating
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3998218/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24735953
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-56-23
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