PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Joanie L. Kennah
AU  - Michael J. L. Peers
AU  - Eric Vander Wal
AU  - Yasmine N. Majchrzak
AU  - Allyson K. Menzies
AU  - Emily K. Studd
AU  - Rudy Boonstra
AU  - Murray M. Humphries
AU  - Thomas S. Jung
AU  - Alice J. Kenney
AU  - Charles J. Krebs
AU  - Stan Boutin
TI  - Coat color mismatch improves survival of a keystone boreal herbivore: energetic advantages exceed lost camouflage
AID  - 10.1101/2021.09.24.461654
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.09.24.461654
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/24/2021.09.24.461654.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/24/2021.09.24.461654.full
AB  - Climate warming is causing asynchronies between animal phenology and environments. Mismatched traits, like coat color change mismatched with snow, can decrease survival. However, coat change does not serve a singular adaptive benefit of camouflage, and alternate coat change functions may confer advantages that supersede mismatch costs. We found that mismatch reduced rather than increased, autumn mortality risk of snowshoe hares in Yukon by 86.5 %. We suggest that the increased coat insulation and lower metabolic rates of winter acclimatized hares confer energetic advantages to white mismatched hares that reduce their mortality risk. We found that white mismatched hares forage 17-77 minutes less per day than matched brown hares between 0 and -10 °C, thus lowering their predation risk and increasing survival. We found no effect of mismatch on spring mortality risk, where mismatch occurred at warmer temperatures, suggesting a potential temperature limit where the costs of conspicuousness outweigh energetic benefits.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.