On Sunday, Aug. 30, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory announced the inaugural winner in their Marmot Project Fat Marmot Week bracket-style competition.
The winner, a yellow-bellied marmot named Dawn, took top honors in the public vote and the weight-gain competitions, beating out seven other contestants.
Dawn achieved the top spot in the popular vote after defeating G in the final round, receiving nearly 61 percent of the 6,171 votes cast during the championship round. A total of 23,060 votes were cast by the public during the week of friendly competition as marmots prepared for winter hibernation.
Through a statistical analysis evaluating the percentage of bulk each marmot put on during the summer, the Marmot Project researchers crowned Dawn as the winner for gaining the most weight. He increased from about 8.5 pounds earlier in the summer to a recent weight of 13 pounds.
“Dawn’s weight gain is impressive, and critical for his survival over the winter,” said Katie Adler, a PhD candidate at UCLA and a “marmoteer” on the Marmot Project team. “When marmots spend eight months underground, they really rely on those fat reserves to sustain them until flowers start blooming again in May or June.”
Yellow-bellied marmots, including those in Rocky Mountain National Park, start hibernation as the temperatures drop in late September or early October. They re-emerge from their dens in April or May as temperatures warm — and after losing about half their body weight.
“Yellow-bellied marmots will double or triple their size prior to hibernation,” said Daniel T. Blumstein, professor at UCLA and co-director of the Marmot Project. “During the winter hibernation, marmots go into a deep torpor, burning about one gram per day — about the equivalent of a paperclip.”
Burning weight sustains the marmot’s body through hibernation, making weight gain during the summer an important process. Marmots are the world’s largest true hibernator, and when they exit hibernation, they immediately begin the process of replacing the lost weight.
Although a warm winter may mean yellow-bellied marmots exit hibernation early — giving them more time to feed on their diet of grasses, forbs, and flowers and pack on the pounds — it may also mean they do not have the insulation provided by a deep snowpack to survive the cold temperatures in their alpine habitat.
“It’s fun to root for the chunkiest marmot, but behind the fun and games is a deathly serious competition against nature to pile on fat to survive the long, cold winter,” Blumstein said. “And these days, with less predictable weather and wild fluctuations in snowfall, survival is not guaranteed.”
Understanding how ecosystems respond to climate change is one of the purposes of RMBL’s Marmot Project and other research projects at the Gothic, Colo. field research station.
The Marmot Project was started in 1962, and it has become the second-longest-running study of individually marked mammals in the world. The collected data now helps scientists understand how ecosystems respond to change across decades, revealing patterns that short-term studies cannot capture. This information can then be applied to better understand and protect the natural systems humans rely on.
To learn more about RMBL’s research and support their work, which has been affected by government funding cuts, visit their website at www.rmbl.org. Marmot admirers can also follow the Gothic marmots on Instagram at @rmblmarmotproject.
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