ArticlePloS one2025
A refined guide for aging muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) based on mandibular examination.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Accurately aging wildlife is essential for effective management and conservation efforts because it supports the estimation of demographic parameters used to model population dynamics and determine harvest quotas. Currently, accurately aging muskoxen is limited by the lack of validated and standardized protocols specific to this species. We investigated three methods for aging muskoxen: tooth eruption pattern, mandible morphometrics, and cementum annuli analysis (CAA). We examined 260 mandibles from community-harvested muskoxen with known harvest dates from Nunavut and the Northwest Territories and radiographed 89 of these mandibles with erupting teeth to track eruption stages. From these data, we developed a key to estimate age of muskoxen from newborn until all permanent teeth have completely erupted (60 months). Next, we assessed the relationship between muskox mandible morphometrics and age using 178 archived mandibles from Banks Island, Northwest Territories. Caudal mandible length was the strongest predictor of age in months (Adjusted R2 = 0.917) up to 5 years old (60 months), after which growth was negligible. This regression model included linear, quadratic, and interaction terms for caudal mandible length with sex. To evaluate accuracy of CAA for aging, we compared cementum results from incisors of 14 captive muskoxen to their known age using linear regression (Adjusted R2 = 0.847). We applied this model, fitted to captive muskox data, to predict the age of 32 community harvested adult muskoxen over 60 months old (5 yo+) using cementum age results. While there was a tendency to underestimate age, this method provided a more informative estimate than classifying all animals as adults once all teeth have erupted. Integrating these methods, we developed a decision tree to guide aging based on the putative age class and available sample type. This framework improves age estimation accuracy for harvested muskoxen, supporting population models and enabling more effective management and conservation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.