Adaptive long-term fasting in land and ice-bound polar bears: Data Table

Bears that stay ashore in summer have almost no access to food and tend to be inactive. Those that stay on the ice, however, have continued access to prey and make extensive movements.

Over a three year period, scientists from the University of Wyoming and the U. S. Geological Service followed the movements of bears in both habitats and monitored their body temperature, muscle condition, blood chemistry, and metabolism. The physiological data will be added to spatially-explicit individual-based population models to predict population response to reduced ice cover.