Ontogenetic and static scaling of antler mass in White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus).

This article focuses on the ontogenetic and static scaling relationships between body mass and antler mass in captive, pen-raised White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and examines how dietary energy and maternal factors influence these relationships throughout development. Males fed a low-energy diet (1.77 kcal/g) exhibited faster relative antler growth when young but slower growth as they aged, resulting in smaller asymptotic antler size compared to males on a standard-energy diet (2.65 kcal/g), who showed a more consistent growth rate. Static scaling coefficients were positively allometric (greater than 1.0) up to 3.5 years of age but became isometric (equal to 1.0) at 4.5 and 5.5 years, with diet and litter size (singleton versus multiple births) influencing scaling only in the youngest males; dam age at birth showed no significant effect. These findings suggest that dietary and maternal influences on antler growth diminish with age, allowing some males to mitigate early-life size deficits, highlighting the complexity of body–antler mass relationships in this species.