Evaluation of pellet morphometry as a method of sex and age categorization in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus mexicanus) in Puebla, Mexico.
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Abstract
Both from an ecological perspective as management, it is important to know the sex ratio and age structure of populations of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). However, in places where you can not directly see the animals in the wild is not easy to determine their age and sex so indirect methods have been used as a morphometric analysis of the pellets. To determine whether the variation between pellets of individuals of different age and sex allows proper categorization, fecal groups were collected from known individuals in captivity in the Zoo UMA-Flor del Bosque, Puebla. We obtained 180 samples of which 18 were young (<1 year), 78 juveniles (2-3 years) and 84 adults (> 3 years). We compared the average for all morphometric variables between groups fecal same individual and between individuals of the same age class and sex. Our results suggest that given the high variation shown in the body measures of the pellets from the same individual in the same season and between seasons, and low fecal variation shown between groups of individuals of different age classes and sex, analysis morphometry of pellets is an unreliable method to determine the age and sex structure of a population of O. v. mexicanus. Consequently, the fuzzy classification technique does not achieve appropriate categorization of the study population because only separates adult males of 5 and 6 years, while younger males and juveniles and adult females and juveniles are not discriminated against in separate classes. Similar analysis suggested this to other subspecies of deer that do not exhibit strong sexual dimorphism as those distributed to the central and southern Mexico.
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Revista Mexicana de Mastozoología, nueva época by Instituto de Ecología, UNAM. Distributed under a Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional.
Based on a work in: http://revistamexicanademastozoologia.com.mx/ojs/index.php/rmm.
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