Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Wolf Population Survival In An Area Of High Road Density, L. David Mech

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Wolf mortality in a high-road-density area of Minnesota exceeds that in an adjacent wilderness, and is primarily human-caused. The wolf population there is maintained primarily by ingress from the adjacent wilderness areas. A road density of 0.58 km/km² can be exceeded and the area still support wolves if it is adjacent to extensive roadless areas.

Loss Of Biological Diversity: A Global Crisis Requiring International Solutions: A Report To The National Science Board, Craig Call Black, Perry L. Adkisson, Gardner Mallard Brown, Rita Rossi Colwell, Charles E. Hess, James B. Holderman, K. June Lindstedt-Siva, William A. Nierenberg, Peter Hamilton Raven, Theodore M. Smith, Edward O. Wilson, W. Franklin Harris

Harold W. Manter Laboratory: Library Materials

Executive Summary

Biological diversity refers to the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur. Diversity can be defined as the number of different items and their relative frequency. For biological diversity, these items are organized at many levels, ranging from complete ecosystems to the chemical structures that are the molecular basis of heredity. Thus, the term encompasses different ecosystems, species, genes, and their relative abundance (OTA, 1987).

There is an ongoing, unprecedented loss of the variety as well as absolute numbers of organisms-from the smallest microorganism to the largest and most spectacular of …