The October Draper Museum Lunchtime Expedition features The Costs of Thermoregulatory Behavior: How are Moose in the Cody Region Coping as Summers Intensify? The talk is presented by Rebecca Levine, who leads the Meeteetse Moose Project.
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To avoid overheating, which can happen at just 50 degrees, moose slow their movement and seek out thermal refuge like shade or water. However, these behavioral changes can have some unintended consequences on nutrition, reproduction, and survival. A moose that devotes too much time to staying cool may not build enough nutritional stores to survive winter or raise young. In speaker Rebecca Levine’s work with the Meeteetse Moose Project, she seeks to untangle how moose navigate tradeoffs between immediate needs, like heat stress, and long-term needs, like reproduction. She shares her insights in this presentation.