wouldn't you think that as one goes north and the winter weather plays a bigger role in fawn survival that the weather would be the over riding factor in rut timing?
winter weather is certainly not much, or any, of a factor in fawn survival here in the Deep South.
Absolutely BhamFred, and that is one theory on why northen deer' rut timing is not affected by other influences, such as herd dynamics. The theory is that because fawn birth timing is so critical to fawn survival up north (born too early in spring, and newborn fawns could be killed by late winter storms; born too late in summer, and fawns do not have enough growing days to reach the critical body mass necessary to survive their first winter), that Natural Selection has a very powerful selection criterion to select against, hence that timing becomes genetically "rigid" (random variations too far away from the "best fit" are quickly weeded out of the population through fawn mortality). However, in the South, the region's far milder winter climate plays little role in fawn survival, thus weather conditions are NOT the top selection criterion and Nature allows for a wide variety of successful fawning dates. If that is the case, the big question then becomes, in the South what ARE the primary selection criteria Nature is using to genetically select for best breeding/fawning dates? In some southern areas with "weird" breeding dates, the probable selection criteria are pretty easy to surmise. But in most southern situations, especially considering the huge range of dates that have been documented, it's a mystery.
