DOI: 10.5443/11407
title: Starting the clock on the CARMA Network: Global change impacts on human/Rangifer systems in the CircumArctic

description: CARMA is an international network of researchers, habitat specialists, climate specialists, veterinarians and disease ecologists, community representatives and management agencies who are concerned about the impacts of global change on the world's wild reindeer and caribou herds. Through the support of the International Polar Year (IPY), much of the CARMA Network monitoring activity has been focussed on health and body condition, population trends, and habitat changes of caribou in selected herds across the Arctic. An assessment of body condition provides measurable indicators for ecological monitoring, especially when monitored concurrently with assessments of parasites, disease, habitat quality, distribution, and demographic parameters. Fat and protein levels of cow caribou are considered a good integrator of seasonal environmental conditions (including infectious and parasitic disease) that relate closely to pregnancy success and calf survival. The CARMA Network has developed monitoring protocol manuals to ensure consistency in methods used to measure health and body condition and in data management. CARMA developed an extensive climate database that covers all calving (summer, fall, winter and spring) ranges for CARMA's herds in: Ahiak, Akia-Maniitsoq, Baffin Island, Bathurst, Beverly, Bluenose East, Bluenose West, Cape Bathurst, Central Arctic, Chokotka (Chukotka), George River, Hardangervidda, Iceland, Kangerlussuaq-Sisimiut, Leaf River, Lena, Porcupine, Qamanirjuaq, Southampton Island, Sundrun, Taimyr, Teshekpuk Lake, Western Arctic, and Yana Indigirka (Indigurka). As part of synthesis efforts, we are summarizing trends in caribou-relevant climate variables. Climate trends will be identified and related to global climate oscillations, and relevance to caribou ecology will be highlighted.
description: Purpose: Although aboriginal communities have been experiencing and coping with caribou abundance and scarcity for millennium, western science has only been accumulating systematic data for approximately forty years, a period that started with caribou lows, continued with almost universal increases, and, since the 1990s, has seen dramatic widespread population declines. Also during this forty-year period, the management of the herds in North America has shifted from central regulation to local control sparked by aboriginal land claims settlements. As herds decline, the groups responsible have been asking questions about causes of declines and whether with increased development, human activity, climate change and more efficient hunting methods, the herds will recover. Moreover, they seek assistance in knowing what can be done to halt the declines and facilitate recovery. For the few herds that have not declined or only begun to decline, experiences gained will be an invaluable tool for managers. That collective experience needed to be formally coordinated, a task that has been the primary objective of the CARMA (CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment) Network. CARMA is an international network which focuses on the impacts of global change on the world's wild Rangifer (reindeer and caribou) herds. It is part of a system of networks under the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program. CARMA's priorities revolve around six "synthesis" questions: (1) How important are seasonal ranges to Rangifer? What are the relative contributions of different seasonal ranges to fecundity, pathogens (parasites and diseases), body condition and survival? (2) What is different about the herds? How consistent, or variable, are the relationships among herds? (3) What causes herds to grow or decline? Is there any common suite of input (habitat) or output (demography) variables that indicate direction of herd growth? (4) How important are pathogens and predators? In what ways do pathogens and predators affect productivity, habitat use and distribution? (5) How important is human harvest to caribou and reindeer herd growth or decline? Are human effects on population abundance additive or compensatory? (6) How are people responding to change now and how might they respond in the future? What are the patterns of human community response (mitigation, adaptation, transformation) to change in caribou abundance, distribution, fecundity, health, and body condition?
description: Summary: Wild reindeer and caribou herds in the Arctic depend on many factors in their physical environment for survival. How they adapt to changes in these factors determines a herd's resiliency. This project is assessing the well-being of specific herds in the Canadian North in relation to climate change. By looking retrospectively and establishing new intensive monitoring protocols, the general health, body condition, population trends and shifts in habitat of these herds are being assessed. To get a global picture, these data are being compared to other herds across the circumpolar North. Furthermore, many northern communities rely on reindeer and caribou economically, socially and culturally. This project is also investigating these communities' abilities to sustain traditional caribou harvesting under conditions of change.