Making No Bones About It: Bone Mineral Density Changes Seasonally in a Nonhibernating Alaskan Rodent
Dates
Year
2009
Citation
Stevenson, Kalb Thayer, van Tets, Ian Gerard, and Chon, Don Young, 2009, Making No Bones About It: Bone Mineral Density Changes Seasonally in a Nonhibernating Alaskan Rodent: Journal of mammalogy, v. 90, no. 1, p. 25-31.
Summary
High-latitude voles and lemmings undergo strong seasonal changes in their behavior and physiology, which may lead to concurrent changes in bone mineral density (BMD). We tested whether the BMD of northern red-backed voles (Myodes rutilus) in Alaska changed seasonally, and if so, whether these changes in their weight-bearing bones were correlated with seasonal changes in photoperiod (a mediator of activity and concentrations of reproductive hormones in high-latitude voles and lemmings), body mass, body length, or a combination of these. We used dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry to measure the BMD of the femur and humerus of voles collected in different seasons. BMDs increased dramatically from the start of spring to their peak level [...]