Preface xi
About the companion website xiii
1 Introduction: goals and decisions 1
1.1 How to use this book 1
1.2 What is wildlife conservation and management? 2
1.3 Goals of management 3
1.4 Hierarchies of decision 6
1.5 Policy goals 7
1.6 Feasible options 7
1.7 Summary 8
Part 1 Wildlife ecology 9
2 Food and nutrition 11
2.1 Introduction 11
2.2 Constituents of food 11
2.3 Variation in food supply 14
2.4 Measurement of food supply 17
2.5 Basal metabolic rate and food requirement 20
2.6 Morphology of herbivore digestion 23
2.7 Food passage rate and food requirement 26
2.8 Body size and diet selection 27
2.9 Indices of body condition 28
2.10 Summary 33
3 Home range and habitat use 35
3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Estimating home range size and utilization frequency 36
3.3 Estimating habitat availability and use 38
3.4 Selective habitat use 40
3.5 Using resource selection functions to predict population
response 42
3.6 Sources of variation in habitat use 42
3.7 Movement within the home range 45
3.8 Movement among home ranges 48
3.9 Summary 51
4 Dispersal, dispersion, and distribution 53
4.1 Introduction 53
4.2 Dispersal 53
4.3 Dispersion 55
4.4 Distribution 56
4.5 Distribution, abundance, and range collapse 61
4.6 Species reintroductions or invasions 62
4.7 Summary 67
5 Population growth and regulation 69
5.1 Introduction 69
5.2 Rate of increase 69
5.3 Geometric or exponential population growth 73
5.4 Stability of populations 73
5.5 The theory of population limitation and regulation 76
5.6 Evidence for regulation 81
5.7 Applications of regulation 85
5.8 Logistic model of population regulation 86
5.9 Stability, cycles, and chaos 88
5.10 Intraspecific competition 90
5.11 Interactions of food, predators, and disease 93
5.12 Summary 93
6 Competition and facilitation between species 95
6.1 Introduction 95
6.2 Theoretical aspects of interspecific competition 96
6.3 Experimental demonstrations of competition 98
6.4 The concept of the niche 103
6.5 The competitive exclusion principle 106
6.6 Resource partitioning and habitat selection 106
6.7 Competition in variable environments 113
6.8 Apparent competition 113
6.9 Facilitation 114
6.10 Applied aspects of competition 119
6.11 Summary 122
7 Predation 123
7.1 Introduction 123
7.2 Predation and management 123
7.3 Definitions 123
7.4 The effect of predators on prey density 124
7.5 The behavior of predators 125
7.6 Numerical response of predators to prey density 129
7.7 The total response 130
7.8 Behavior of the prey 136
7.9 Summary 138
8 Parasites and pathogens 139
8.1 Introduction and definitions 139
8.2 Effects of parasites 139
8.3 The basic parameters of epidemiology 140
8.4 Determinants of spread 143
8.5 Endemic pathogens 144
8.6 Endemic pathogens: synergistic interactions with food and
predators 144
8.7 Epizootic diseases 146
8.8 Emerging infectious diseases of wildlife 147
8.9 Parasites and the regulation of host populations 150
8.10 Parasites and host communities 151
8.11 Parasites and conservation 152
8.12 Parasites and control of pests 155
8.13 Summary 156
9 Consumer?resource dynamics 157
9.1 Introduction 157
9.2 Quality and quantity of a resource 157
9.3 Kinds of resource 157
9.4 Consumer?resource dynamics: general theory 158
9.5 Kangaroos and their food plants in semi-arid Australian
savannas 161
9.6 Wolf?moose?woody plant dynamics in the boreal
forest 167
9.7 Other population cycles 172
9.8 Summary 175
10 The ecology of behavior 177
10.1 Introduction 177
10.2 Diet selection 177
10.3 Optimal patch or habitat use 183
10.4 Risk-sensitive habitat use 186
10.5 Social behavior and foraging 187
10.6 Summary 190
11 Climate change and wildlife 191
11.1 Introduction 191
11.2 Evidence for climate change 191
11.3 Wildlife responses to climate change 192
11.4 Mechanisms of response to climate change 196
11.5 Complex ecosystem responses to climate change 199
11.6 Summary 201
Part 2 Wildlife conservation and management 203
12 Counting animals 205
12.1 Introduction 205
12.2 Total counts 205
12.3 Sampled counts: the logic 207
12.4 Sampled counts: methods and arithmetic 212
12.5 Indirect estimates of population size 220
12.6 Indices 227
12.7 Harvest-based population estimates 228
12.8 Summary 231
13 Age and stage structure 233
13.1 Introduction 233
13.2 Demographic rates 233
13.3 Direct estimation of life table parameters 235
13.4 Indirect estimation of life table parameters 236
13.5 Relationships among parameters 238
13.6 Age-specific population models 239
13.7 Elasticity of matrix models 242
13.8 Stage-specific models 243
13.9 Elasticity of the loggerhead turtle model 245
13.10 Short-term changes in structured populations 246
13.11 Environmental stochasticity and age-structured populations
246
13.12 Summary 249
14 Experimental management 251
14.1 Introduction 251
14.2 Differentiating success from failure 251
14.3 Technical judgments can be tested 252
14.4 The nature of the evidence 255
14.5 Experimental and survey design 257
14.6 Some standard analyses 262
14.7 Summary 271
15 Model evaluation and adaptive management 273
15.1 Introduction 273
15.2 Fitting models to data and estimation of parameters 274
15.3 Measuring the likelihood of the observed data 276
15.4 Evaluating the likelihood of alternate models using AIC
278
15.5 Adaptive management 281
15.6 Summary 284
16 Population viability analysis 285
16.1 Introduction 285
16.2 Environmental stochasticity 285
16.3 PVA based on the exponential growth model 286
16.4 PVA based on the diffusion model 287
16.5 PVA based on logistic growth 290
16.6 Demographic stochasticity 291
16.7 Estimating both environmental and demographic stochasticity
294
16.8 PVA based on demographic and environmental stochasticity
296
16.9 Strengths and weaknesses of PVA 296
16.10 Extinction caused by environmental change 298
16.11 Extinction threat due to introduction of exotic predators
or competitors 298
16.12 Extinction threat due to unsustainable harvesting 300
16.13 Extinction threat due to habitat loss 302
16.14 Summary 302
17 Conservation in practice 305
17.1 Introduction 305
17.2 How populations go extinct 305
17.3 How to prevent extinction 315
17.4 Rescue and recovery of near-extinctions 316
17.5 Conservation in National Parks and reserves 317
17.6 Community conservation outside National Parks and reserves
322
17.7 International conservation 323
17.8 Summary 324
18 Wildlife harvesting 325
18.1 Introduction 325
18.2 Fixed-quota harvesting strategy 325
18.3 Fixed-proportion harvesting strategy 329
18.4 Harvesting in practice: dynamic variation in quotas or
effort 332
18.5 No-harvest reserves 334
18.6 Age- or sex-biased harvesting 335
18.7 Commercial harvesting 340
18.8 Bioeconomics 340
18.9 Game cropping and the discount rate 344
18.10 Summary 346
19 Wildlife control 347
19.1 Introduction 347
19.2 Definitions 347
19.3 Effects of control 348
19.4 Objectives of control 348
19.5 Determining whether control is appropriate 349
19.6 Methods of control 350
19.7 Summary 356
20 Evolution and conservation genetics 357
20.1 Introduction 357
20.2 Maintenance of genetic variation 358
20.3 Natural selection 359
20.4 Natural selection and life history tradeoffs 361
20.5 Natural selection due to hunting 363
20.6 Natural selection due to fishing 365
20.7 Selection due to environmental change 367
20.8 Ecological dynamics due to evolutionary changes 372
20.9 Heterozygosity 374
20.10 Genetic drift and mutation 375
20.11 Inbreeding depression 376
20.12 How much genetic variation is needed? 377
20.13 Effective population size 378
20.14 Effect of sex ratio 379
20.15 How small is too small? 380
20.16 Summary 380
21 Habitat loss and metapopulation dynamics 381
21.1 Introduction 381
21.2 Habitat loss and fragmentation 381
21.3 Ecological effects of habitat loss 384
21.4 Metapopulation dynamics 386
21.5 Territorial metapopulations 389
21.6 Mainland?island metapopulations 390
21.7 Source?sink metapopulations 391
21.8 Metacommunity dynamics of competitors 392
21.9 Metacommunity dynamics of predators and prey 393
21.10 Corridors 394
21.11 Summary 398
22 Ecosystem management and conservation 399
22.1 Introduction 399
22.2 Definitions 400
22.3 Gradients of communities 400
22.4 Niches 400
22.5 Food webs and intertrophic interactions 400
22.6 Community features and management consequences 402
22.7 Multiple states 404
22.8 Regulation of top-down and bottom-up processes 405
22.9 Ecosystem consequences of bottom-up processes 407
22.10 Ecosystem disturbance and heterogeneity 408
22.11 Ecosystem management at multiple scales 410
22.12 Biodiversity 411
22.13 Island biogeography and dynamic processes of diversity
413
22.14 Ecosystem function 415
22.15 Summary 417
Appendices 419
Glossary 423
References 435
Index 489
