SREL Reprint #1832

Decrease in body size of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) during the late Holocene in South Carolina and Georgia

James R. Purdue and Elizabeth J. Reitz

Introduction: Body size is an important determinant for many biological functions and characters closely associated with fitness (e.g., Peters, 1983; Calder, 1984). Many of the genes that determine traits like body size probably are invariant in a population (Fisher, 1930) and have low heritability due to past selection. Indeed, body size in mammals has been shown to have low heritability (Falconer, 1989). Body size also tends to be quite responsive to changes in certain environmental factors that in turn serve as the ultimate sources of selection (Falconer, 1989). Studies of animals that have changed body size rapidly in the fossil record could be useful to an understanding of evolution in response to variations in paleoecology.

SREL Reprint #1832

Purdue, J.R. and E.J. Reitz. 1993. Decrease in body size of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) during the late Holocene in South Carolina and Georgia. pp. 281-298 In:  R.A. Martin and A.D. Barnosky (Eds.). Morphological Change in Quaternary Mammals of North America. Cambridge University Press. Great Britain. 

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).