Premium
Grey seals red in tooth and claw: how Darwin helps model their population
Author(s) -
Thomas Len
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
significance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1740-9713
pISSN - 1740-9705
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2009.00372.x
Subject(s) - darwin (adl) , charles darwin , population , livelihood , claw , extinction (optical mineralogy) , genealogy , environmental ethics , history , geography , sociology , demography , biology , evolutionary biology , philosophy , archaeology , computer science , ecology , paleontology , software engineering , darwinism , agriculture
Grey seals in Britain are a conservation success, brought back from the brink of extinction by protection in the early 20th century. The public love them. Fishermen hate them. The resurgence of the “grey guzzlers” threatens their livelihood, they say. Len Thomas shows how Charles Darwin's ideas are used to determine seal numbers and population dynamics. Surprisingly, Darwin's theories have also influenced the statistical tools that are used.