Wildlife Biology, 2nd Edition

1 What Good Are Wild Animals 3

Wildlife Values 5

Commercial values 5

Game Values 7

Aesthetic values 8

Ethical values 9

Scientific values 9

Ecological values 10

Wildlife As a Natural Resource 11

The Status of Wildlife Conservation 13

2 The Ten-Thousand Year War 19

3 Everything Tied Together 29

Functioning of Ecosystems 30

Energy flow 30

Nutrient cycling 33

Hydrologic cycles 34

Food chains and webs 35

Ecosystem Development 35

Change and Degradation 39

Distribution of Biotic Communities 44

Faunal regions 44

Biomes 46

Biotic provinces 47

Ecologic Niches 48

4 A Place to Live 55

Enough to Eat 57

Effects on plants 59

Dietary needs 60

Seasonal changes in food values 60

Soils and nutrition 63

Other factors affecting food supply 64

Cover 66

Water 68

Quantity versus Interspersion 71

Limiting Factors 71

5 Introducing Wildlife Populations 75

Density and Biomass 76

Population Structure 81

Natality 83

Clutch size and litter size 89

Length of breeding season and numbers of clutches or litters per year 85

Breeding age 86

Sex ratio and mating habits 87

Density 87

Maximum natality 88

Mortality 89

Predation 89

Diseases and parasites 90

Poisoning 92

Accidents 94

Weather 94

Starvation 95

Stress 95

Hunting 96

Overall effects of mortality 96

Interaction of Population Characteristics 98

Turnover 99

Productivity 100

6 Territory and Travels 103

Movements Internal to the Population Area 104

Home range 104

Migration 106

Movements External to the Population Area 109

Group Size and Spacing 111

Territory 112

Significance of Spacing and Movements 115

7 Too Many Mice, Too Few Elephants 119

New Populations In New Habitats 120

Some Real Life Problems 125

Exponential growth 125

Slow growth 127

The Annual Cycle of Populations 130

“Shootable Surplus” 132

Stocking of Game 133

Stability of Populations 133

Stable populations 133

Stable populations 135

Cyclic populations 135

The 3-4 year cycle 135

The 10-year cycle 139

Irruptive populations 143

Evolutionary Strategies 146

8 Levelling Off 151

The Many Meanings of Carrying Capacity 151

Subsistence density 152

Optimum density 155

Security density 155

Tolerance density 158

Intermediate situations 161

9 Declining Diversity 167

Species Extinction and Area Size 169

Destruction of Habitat 171

Nature Reserves 174

Animal Trade 177

International Assistance 178

10 The Controllers 181

References 195

Index 204