Mark Hebblewhite, Evelyn Merrill, and Greg McDermid. Year. A multi-scale test of the forage maturation hypothesis in a partially migratory ungulate population. Ecological Monographs VOL: pp-pp.

Appendix C. Estimating growing-season parameters for phenology modeling.

Growing-season parameters were estimated following methods used by Jobbagy et al. (2002). Appendix Fig. C1 illustrates how the start, end, and peak of the growing seasons were estimated using the same methods as Jobbagy et al. (2002).

FIG. C1. Annual quadratic forage growth models (curved lines) for a south facing low elevation grassland site at the Ya Ha Tinda, 2002 – 2004. The single horizontal dashed lines (---) represent the average minimum and maximum measured forage biomass for this site, and the double dashed line (= =) represents the growing threshold calculated as 25% of the difference between the min and max biomass (following Jaggoby et al. 2002). For 2002 (■) the start and end of the growing season was estimated as the intersection of the quadratic growth curve and the growing threshold, yielding start JD = 151 and end of 244.

LITERATURE CITED

Jobbagy, E. G., O. E. Sala, and J. M. Paruelo. 2002. Patterns and controls of primary production in the Patagonian Steppe: a remote sensing approach. Ecology 83:307–319.