Impact of climatic factors to the percentage of young in the population of brown hare (Lepus europaeus P) in the Bačka district

Climatic factors, especially temperature and precipitations, greatly affect the dynamics of the hare number and population. Climatic factors directly affect the physiological and reproductive processes of both individuals and entire populations, or indirectly, through the availability of food, competition with other species, predators and other. The age structure of the hare population at the end of the period of reproduction is an important indicator of the population growth that is used for planning the level of explotation of the hare population (hunting). The rational use of the hare's population is one of the most important protection procedures and it should be well monitored and controlled by the hunting professionals. We used the average monthly temperature and the sum of monthly precipitations in the hare reproductive period (March-September) during ten years (2000 - 2009), together with the percent of young in the hare population, on the territory of Bačka, for multiple regression (stepwise) analysis. Results of the regression analysis show an association between the percentage of young hares and the influence of climatic factors. The average temperature and sum of precipitation in June, are the strongest predictor of the percent of young in the hare’s population in Bačka. According to the coefficient of determination (R2=0.50) climatic parameters account for 50% of variance in the percentage of young hares in Bačka. The regression correlation coefficient of all factors was R=0.70, which is on the border line between medium and high correlation

Management of roe deer population (Capreolus capreolus L.) in Serbia

ABSTRACT The research was conducted during the 2018/19 hunting year at three hunting grounds: "Barajevska reka" - "Takovo" and "Jadar". The average density of Roe deer in hunting grounds varied from 48.67 to 74 individuals per 1,000 ha of hunting-productive area. However, when observing the number of individuals per 1,000 ha of total hunting area, the density varies from 16.07 individuals to 34.72 individuals. The determined gender ratio at the hunting ground "Jadar" was (M: F = 1: 0.93). At the hunting ground "Takovo", the gender ratio was (M: F = 1: 1.22), while at the hunting ground "Barajevska reka" the ratio was (M: F = 1: 1.59). The average fertility of Roe deer was 1.67 embryos per individual, or 1.75 embryos per pregnant female. Depending on the study area, the real growth varied from 0.54 to 0.73 fawns per female. Loss in Roe deer are caused mostly by biotic factors. The determined average age of shot individuals varied depending on the hunting ground from 3.53 to 5.24 years. The current state of Roe deer populations in Serbia varies between analyzed hunting grounds, but the overall situation is quite unsatisfactory, especially in terms of density, gender ratio and age structure of culled individuals

Positive selection and precipitation effects on the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6 gene in brown hares (Lepus europaeus) under a phylogeographic perspective

Previous studies in hares and jackrabbits have indicated that positive selection has shaped the genetic diversity of mitochondrial genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation, which may affect cellular energy production and cause regional adaptation to different environmental (climatic) pressures. In the present study, we sequenced the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6 (MT-ND6) gene of 267 brown hares (L. europaeus) from Europe and Asia Minor and tested for positive selection and adaptations acting on amino acid sequences (protein variants). Molecular diversity indices and spatial clustering were assessed by DnaSP, Network, and Geneland, while the presence of selection signals was tested by codeml in PAML, and by using the Datamonkey Adaptive Evolution web server. The SPSS software was used to run multinomial regression models to test for possible effects of climate parameters on the currently obtained protein variants. Fifty-eight haplotypes were revealed with a haplotype diversity of 0.817, coding for 17 different protein variants. The MT-ND6 phylogeographic pattern as determined by the nucleotide sequences followed the earlier found model based on the neutrally evolving D-loop sequences, and reflected the earlier found phylogeographic Late Pleistocene scenario. Based on several selection tests, only one codon position consistently proved to be under positive selection. It did occur exclusively in the evolutionarily younger hares from Europe and it gave rise to several protein variants from the southeastern and south-central Balkans. The occurrence of several of those variants was significantly favored under certain precipitation conditions, as proved by our multinomial regression models. Possibly, the great altitudinal variation in the Balkans may have lead to bigger changes in precipitation across that region and this may have imposed an evolutionarily novel selective pressure on the protein variants and could have led to regional adaptation. © 2019 Stefanović et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited