Graduate Program

Biological Sciences

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Semester of Degree Completion

2011

Thesis Director

Redacted

Thesis Committee Member

Scott Meiners

Thesis Committee Member

Kip McGilliard

Abstract

Many factors, such as genetics, food availability and the exact food species, can affect the growth rate and asymptotic size of animals. Since the I 960's, the coastal areas and islands in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina have become vacation destinations with large and lavish resort communities built to accommodate the large number of visitors to areas that were once called home by just a small number of residents. These developments brought with them non-native plants and improved soil quality for both native and non-native plants. During this same time period, the whitetailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus) native to the areas began to increase in size, as measured by skull size, which is a phenotypically stable character in mammals. The purpose of this project is to determine whether the increased size of deer is due to higher nutritional values of non-native plants and whether deer diets have shifted to include plants of higher nutritional content. Analysis proceeded by comparing the rumen contents of deer collected from the early 1970's to the late 1990's in comparable areas including developed, managed, and undeveloped habitats. The research showed that while the diet of deer has changed, the change is too minimal to have caused such a dramatic change in size. It is possible that the change has been caused macronutrients, such as calcium, phosphorus, and potassium.

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