A central issue in ecology is to what extent food limitation and predation affect animal populations. We studied how survival and reproductive success was related to the female's size in a population of semi-domesticated @entity4378 during 2 years where there was a large difference in snowfall during winter. The females were kept within a predator-free enclosure for about 5 weeks during the calving period and thereafter released to their natural summer pastures. Small females were more likely to fail to reproduce and they produced smaller @entity291 than large females. Additionally, small females were more likely to loose their @entity291 due to starvation within the predator-free enclosure and to predators outside the enclosure. Food limitation during the harsh winter appeared to be the major cause of @entity204 . However, food limitation interacted with predation and led to high @entity291 losses when the females experienced low food availability during the harsh winter. In contrast, predators killed no @entity291 after the mild winter. Apparently, the interaction between predation and food limitation is due to small females favouring their own growth and survival over @entity291 production in summers following harsh winters with food shortage. Our results indicate that a compensatory relationship exists between mortality due food limitation and predation. Thus, the impact of @entity291 predation on @entity4378 demography and population dynamics may be limited.

An examination of a compensatory relationship between food limitation and predation in semi-domestic XXXX .

@entity204 :: ('MESH:D003643', 'Disease') :: ['deaths'] @entity291 :: ('9913', 'Species') :: ['calves', 'calf'] @entity4378 :: ('9870', 'Species') :: ['reindeer']
@entity4378 :: (9870,Species) :: ['reindeer']
