Abstract
White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations persist at densities higher than historical estimates throughout much of their North American range. In forest ecosystems, heavy browsing by high-density deer populations can suppress the growth and regeneration of woody plants and promote the establishment and growth of non-preferred forage items, such as grasses and ferns. Additionally, as forests are altered by anthropogenic development, grasslands and meadows are becoming increasingly common in forest landscapes where deer occur. We used activity densities to measure the seasonal patch preference of white-tailed deer between forest patches and anthropogenically-introduced meadows in northeast Ohio, a region with high-density deer populations. We also quantified the plant communities that were present in each patch type to identify forage plants that were available to deer. We found that deer preferred meadow patches and avoided forests during spring and summer. Meadow patches primarily consisted of non-native forage plants that are nutritionally beneficial to deer, whereas forests possessed fewer nutritionally beneficial plants and contained an abundance of open ground. However, as plants senesced and forage availability on the landscape decreased during autumn and winter, deer did not prefer any patch type. Our results suggest that in anthropogenically fragmented forests, meadows can provide deer with a potentially overlooked foraging subsidy that should be considered when managing high-density deer populations.