Snow depth influences harvest of a boreal ungulate more than socio-economic factors: Implications for food security in a changing climate.

Climate change may affect the ability of hunters to harvest wildlife and, hence, threaten food security of local people. However, few studies have investigated the relative influence of environmental conditions on wildlife harvest rates. We harnessed a 24-year dataset of harvest dates for a boreal ungulate in a region where climate change is having pronounced impacts on snow depth, precipitation, and temperatures to investigate the effect of weather on harvest rates. We used generalized linear models and a model selection framework to examine the influence of weather covariates (snow depth, mean daily temperature, precipitation) and socio-economic factors (gasoline and red meat prices, employment rates, and moose [Alces americanus] harvest) on harvest rates of bison (Bison bison) in Yukon, Canada, at two temporal scales: annual and daily. At an annual scale, snow depth was the only covariate that was important in explaining bison harvest. No socioeconomic variables improved our model beyond the null. At the daily scale, snow depth and mean daily temperature influenced bison harvest rates, with a 1 SD increase resulting in a 14 % and 9 % increase in daily harvest rates, respectively. Increased snow depth facilitates ease of travel in remote, roadless areas by snowmobile to locate bison and truncates movements of bison, resulting in increased harvest rates. Decreased snow depth due to climate change will impact hunter access to boreal ungulates and food security for northern people. More broadly, our data suggests that in some socioecological systems, environmental covariates have a greater influence on wildlife harvest rates than socioeconomic factors and need to be considered in future studies to better understand and predict harvest rates.

3-(4-Bromo-phen-yl)cyclo-pent-2-en-1-one.

In the title compound, C11H9BrO, the cyclo-pentenone ring is almost planar with an r.m.s. deviation of 0.0097 Å. The largest inter-ring torsion angles [2.4 (3), 1.3 (3) and 3.53 (2)°] reveal only a very small twist between the rings, and suggest that the two rings are conjugated. The mol-ecule is slightly bowed, as shown by the small dihedral angle between the rings [5.3 (1)°]. The crystal packing pattern consists of parallel sheets that stack parallel to the ac plane. Each sheet consists of mol-ecules that pack side-to-side with the same relative orientation of phenyl and cyclo-pentenone rings along the a- and c-axis directions. Slipped side-to-side, face-to-face and edge-to-face inter-actions exist between pairs of sheets with edge-to-edge and edge-to-face O⋯H-C(sp (2)) weak hydrogen-bond contacts. A relatively short edge-to-face contact (2.77 Å) also exists between pairs of sheets.