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Wolf population regulation revisited—Again
Author(s) -
Mcroberts Ronald E.,
Mech L. David
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the journal of wildlife management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1937-2817
pISSN - 0022-541X
DOI - 10.1002/jwmg.744
Subject(s) - territoriality , intraspecific competition , heteroscedasticity , public domain , population , regression analysis , geography , regression , government (linguistics) , econometrics , demography , statistics , sociology , biology , ecology , economics , mathematics , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology
ABSTRACT The long‐accepted conclusion that wolf density is regulated by nutrition was recently challenged, and the conclusion was reached that, at greater levels of prey biomass, social factors such as intraspecific strife and territoriality tend to regulate wolf density. We reanalyzed the data used in that study for 2 reasons: 1) we disputed the use of 2 data points, and 2) because of recognized heteroscedasticity, we used weighted‐regression analysis instead of the unweighted regressions used in the original study. We concluded that the data do not support the hypothesis that wolf densities are regulated by social factors. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.