Conservation of Wildlife Populations Demography, Genetics, and Management

by Mills, L. Scott

• ISBN13: 9780470671498
• ISBN10: 0470671491
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-12-17
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Population ecology has matured to a sophisticated science with astonishing potential for contributing solutions to wildlife conservation and management challenges. And yet, much of the applied power of wildlife population ecology remains untapped because its broad sweep across disparate subfields has been isolated in specialized texts. In this book, L. Scott Mills covers the full spectrum of applied wildlife population ecology, including genomic tools for non-invasive genetic sampling, predation, population projections, climate change and invasive species, harvest modeling, viability analysis, focal species concepts, and analyses of connectivity in fragmented landscapes. With a readable style, analytical rigor, and hundreds of examples drawn from around the world, Conservation of Wildlife Populations (2 nd ed) provides the conceptual basis for applying population ecology to wildlife conservation decision-making. Although targeting primarily undergraduates and beginning graduate students with some basic training in basic ecology and statistics (in majors that could include wildlife biology, conservation biology, ecology, environmental studies, and biology), the book will also be useful for practitioners in the field who want to find - in one place and with plenty of applied examples - the latest advances in the genetic and demographic aspects of population ecology.

Author Biography

L. Scott Mills is a Professor in the Wildlife Biology Program at The University of Montana.  He was a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, has received multiple NSF Awards, served on the Board of Governors for the North American Section of the Society for Conservation Biology, and has testified to Congress about the role of ethics in wildlife population biology research. Mills was an invited contributor to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (IPCC) report, and to the Western Governors’ Association Climate Change Working Group.  His research and teaching integrates field studies with population models and genetic analyses to understand effects of human perturbations on wildlife populations.   Mills’ research on wildlife around the world – from snowshoe hares to marmots, mice to coyotes, bighorn sheep to snow leopards and tigers - has been covered in media outlets including Newsweek, National Geographic, The New York Times, Discovery Channel Canada, Science News, National Public Radio, Nature, Science, and The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. 

Table of Contents

List of boxes, ix

Preface to second edition, xi

Preface to first edition, xii

List of symbols, xiv

Acknowledgments for second edition, xv

Acknowledgments for first edition, xvi

PART I BACKGROUND TO APPLIED POPULATION BIOLOGY, 1

1 The big picture: human population dynamics meet applied population biology, 3

2 Designing studies and interpreting population biology data: how do we know what we know?, 14

3 Genetic concepts and tools to support wildlife population biology, 33

4 Estimating population vital rates, 54

PART II POPULATION PROCESSES: THE BASIS FOR MANAGEMENT, 77

5 The simplest way to describe and project population growth: exponential or geometric
change, 79

6 All stage classes are not equal in their effects on population growth: structured
population-projection models, 98

7 Density-dependent population change, 126

8 Predation and wildlife populations, 142

9 Genetic variation and fi tness in wildlife populations, 154

10 Dynamics of multiple populations, 175

PART III APPLYING KNOWLEDGE OF POPULATION PROCESSES TO PROBLEMS OF DECLINING, SMALL, OR HARVESTABLE POPULATIONS, 199

11 Human-caused stressors: deterministic factors affecting populations, 201

12 Predicting the dynamics of small and declining populations, 224

13 Focal species to bridge from populations to ecosystems, 244

14 Population biology to guide sustainable harvest, 251

Summary, 266

Further Reading, 267

Epilogue, 269

References, 271

Index, 301

Colour Plates fall between page 160 and 16