To understand modern principles of sustainable management and the conservation of wildlife species requires intimate knowledge about demography, animal behavior, and ecosystem dynamics. With emphasis on practical application and quantitative skill development, this book weaves together these disparate elements in a single coherent textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students. It reviews analytical techniques, explaining the mathematical and statistical principles behind them, and shows how these can be used to formulate realistic objectives within an ecological framework. This third edition is comprehensive and up-to-date, and includes: * Brand new chapters that disseminate rapidly developing topics in the field: habitat use and selection; habitat fragmentation, movement, and corridors; population viability. analysis, the consequences of climate change; and evolutionary responses to disturbance * A thorough updating of all chapters to present important areas of wildlife research and management with recent developments and examples. * A new online study aid - a wide variety of downloadable computer programs in the freeware packages R and Mathcad, available through a companion website. Worked examples enable readers to practice calculations explained in the text and to develop a solid understanding of key statistical procedures and population models commonly used in wildlife ecology and management. The first half of the book provides a solid background in key ecological concepts. The second half uses these concepts to develop a deeper understanding of the principles underlying wildlife management and conservation. Global examples of real-life management situations provide a broad perspective on the international problems of conservation, and detailed case histories demonstrate concepts and quantitative analyses. This third edition is also valuable to professional wildlife managers, park rangers, biological resource managers, and those working in ecotourism. To understand modern principles of sustainable management and the conservation of wildlife species requires intimate knowledge about demography, animal behavior, and ecosystem dynamics. This book weaves together these disparate elements for senior undergraduate and graduate students. 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