Collaboration: Herders N.I.Eira, M.Sara

Objectives: To determine the effects of local climatic variability and climate change on nutritional status and welfare of reindeer through understanding of physiological adaptation to change.

Data and Method: (i) Literature review of welfare indicators related to under- and malnutrition particularly in relation to variation in climate and grazing conditions in winter. Parameters include bio-indicators in relation to physiological adaptations to change in (a) the composition and quality of diet and (b) the management regimen. (ii) Herders’ traditional knowledge of the animal welfare and related physiological condition . Tasks of this Work Package include a synthesis of nutrition and on the daily intake of different types of forage (lichens, grasses and woody plants) in reindeer in relation to local climate variation.

Alongside this, herders’ information will be codified and compared. The effects of variation in forage quality on the growth and nutritional status of reindeer will be synthesised and herders’ information will be codified and compared with science and between regions. Other tasks include codifying herders’ information on reindeer’ requirements for energy and protein in winter in relation to different management practices, using lifetime data on cow-female calf pairs to quantify the heritability of selected phenotypic traits and an analysis of herders’ conceptualisation and understanding of the relationships between climate variation and the growth and productivity of their reindeer (Sámi and Nenets).