The Relation between Premolar Wear and Age in Yellow-bellied Marmots, Marmota flaviventris [La relation entre la présence de prémolaire et l'âge chez les marmottes à ventre jaune].

Résumé

We evaluated the utility of the premolar gap technique for estimating age of Yellow-bellied Marmots (Marmota flaviventris). Premolar wear increased linearly with age through four years, then stabilized. The technique is unsuitable for estimating ages of marmots older than three years, but shows promise for marmots one through three years old. the cause probably was a higher dispersal rate of noncolonial versus colonial yearlings, coupled with lower survival of dispersers. We suggest that lower fitness of noncolonial females, as indicated by the apparently lower survival of their offspring and their lowel likelihood of recruiting daughters to form matrilines, derives from lower quantity and quality of resources at localities of noncolonial females.