Dietary responses in Svalbard reindeer to changes in winter climate

The Svalbard winter is heating up, with more frequent rain and icing. Icing reduces food access for Svalbard reindeer and may force them to seek alternative food, such as sea-weed. This project aims to explore reindeer diets in response to winter climate change. Through stable isotope analysis and fecal analysis I will link variation in diet to snow-ice conditions across the winter and between winters and populations. I will also use multiple tissue types from reindeer to develop a novel methodological te st of the stable isotope approach for detecting diet signals at daily, monthly, annual and life-time scale.