Steppe Marmot (Marmota bobak) as ecosystem engineer in arid steppes

Infanticide in the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota)

We report the first case of directly observed infanticide in the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota). Moreover, previous and present observations suggest that 12 young could have been killed by infanticide in the population under study. The bodies of five of them were found with similar neck injuries. In all cases, infanticidal animals were adult males entering a territory in the absence of the res...

Scent-marking in the yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris)

Cheek-marking in yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) was studied by observations of cheek-marking in two colonies from 10 June to 6 August, 1996 and by experimental studies of responses to olfactory secretions from the perioral gland. The rate of cheek-marking declined significantly as the season progressed. Most cheek-marking occurred within 3 m of the main burrow system and was prim...

Ecosystem responses to mowing manipulations in an arid Inner Mongolia steppe: An energy perspective

Mowing for hay is a widely adopted practice for grasslands utilization and management. However, its effects on energy partitioning have not well been studied. Our primary objective was to examine the role of mowing as a disturbance factor acting on energy partitioning and relationships between community composition/structure and energy fluxes in a typical steppe ecosystem through a long-term fi...

Rangelands in Arid Ecosystem

Contrasting patterns of selection acting on MHC class I and class II DRB genes in the Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota).

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes code for proteins that play a critical role in the immune system response. The MHC genes are among the most polymorphic genes in vertebrates, presumably due to balancing selection. The two MHC classes appear to differ in the rate of evolution, but the reasons for this variation are not well understood. Here, we investigate the level of polymorphi...