Indexing the Annual Fat Cycle in a Mule Deer Population

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Abstract
Valid use of kidney fat index to track the annual fat cycle assumes that kidney mass is a constant proportion of bled carcass mass, an assumption not met for some cervids. Among 51 mature male and 89 mature female Rocky Mountain mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus) shot at approximately weekly intervals, curves of the annual cycle of kidney fat index and kidney fat mass coincided, but curves of the annual cycles of kidney mass and bled carcass mass did not. We recommend the more easily measured and less ambiguous kidney fat mass (KFM) as the best index of the annual fat cycle. A regression model approach indicated that mean transformed ln(KFM) can be estimated with high precision at a fixed point in time with small sample sizes. Fluctuations in the annual kidney fat mass cycle and daily rates of percent change were sex-specific and were associated with a nutritional cycle-reproductive cycle interaction.

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