The aim of this study was to see what effect game fences along road E4 have on moose browsing. I wanted to know if moose browsing escalates close to the game fences or not. I also wanted to know if there is considerable difference in browsing between the east and west side of road E4 in my study area. To test these questions, I performed counts of 60 measurements where I measured moose browsing damage. The measurements were executed 50 to 3000 meters from the fences and were located on both the east and west side of E4. Then I analysed my dataset with correlation analysis to see the relationship between distance from the road and moose browsing. I also compared the amount of browsing damage between the west and east side and used t-test to test the differences in moose browsing. My results showed that moose browsing increased with decreasing distance to the road both measured as percentage damaged and counts of damaged pine trees within each sample. My results also showed that there was significantly more browsing damage on the east side of the road than the west side. The game fences seem to concentrate moose near the fences, and this can result in greater browsing pressure. This should be considered when planning infrastructure and forest management.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-177771 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Bergman, Tobias |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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