Hilde Karine Wam
Research Professor
Authors
Robert Spitzer Monica Ericson Annika M. Felton Morten Heim David Raubenheimer Erling Johan Solberg Hilde Karine Wam Christer Moe RolandsenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Annika M. Felton Robert Spitzer David Raubenheimer Per-Ola Hedwall Adam Felton Ruth V. Nichols Brendan L. O'Connell Jonas Malmsten Erik Löfmarck Hilde Karine WamAbstract
Animals representing a wide range of taxonomic groups are known to select specific food combinations to achieve a nutritionally balanced diet. The nutrient balancing hypothesis suggests that, when given the opportunity, animals select foods to achieve a particular target nutrient balance, and that balancing occurs between meals and between days. For wild ruminants who inhabit landscapes dominated by human land use, nutritionally imbalanced diets can result from ingesting agricultural crops rich in starch and sugar (nonstructural carbohydrates [NCs]), which can be provided to them by people as supplementary feeds. Here, we test the nutrient balancing hypothesis by assessing potential effects that the ingestion of such crops by Alces alces (moose) may have on forage intake. We predicted that moose compensate for an imbalanced intake of excess NC by selecting tree forage with macro-nutritional content better suited for their rumen microbiome during wintertime. We applied DNA metabarcoding to identify plants in fecal and rumen content from the same moose during winter in Sweden. We found that the concentration of NC-rich crops in feces predicted the presence of Picea abies (Norway spruce) in rumen samples. The finding is consistent with the prediction that moose use tree forage as a nutritionally complementary resource to balance their intake of NC-rich foods, and that they ingested P. abies in particular (normally a forage rarely eaten by moose) because it was the most readily available tree. Our finding sheds new light on the foraging behavior of a model species in herbivore ecology, and on how habitat alterations by humans may change the behavior of wildlife.
Abstract
Democratizing learning is essential for environmental sustainability. Less privileged areas are crucial in this regard. Informal education has great such potential, but often fails to reach the less privileged, and to document learning. With the objective to identify and counter these issues, we here report on EDU-ARCTIC, an informal open schooling course in environmental science, aimed at European teachers with teenage pupils. Of the 1,181 teachers who enrolled, 73% were females and 43% were from less privileged nations (according to UN Human Development Index). This is a higher share of less privileged (females) than is the case for the general population of Europe. Teachers from less privileged nations also participated in more project activities than did those from more privileged nations, apart from in urban areas. For the project period, the teachers reported a significant increase in all the three categories of aspired learning outcomes for their pupils. We conclude that courses like ours can increase teenagers’ literacy and engagement in science and environmental issues, not the least in less privileged areas. Deliberate efforts are required to reach these target groups, who may be less inclined to join on their own.