caa a22 4500 467886059 CHVBK 20180406152734.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e20060301xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10021-005-0100-z doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10021-005-0100-z Was Aldo Leopold Right about the Kaibab Deer Herd? [Elektronische Daten] [Dan Binkley, Margaret Moore, William Romme, Peter Brown] In ecology textbooks prior to the 1970s, Aldo Leopold's classic story of predator control, overpopulation of deer, and habitat degradation on the Kaibab Plateau during the 1920s epitomized predator regulation of herbivore populations. However, the story disappeared from texts in the late 20th century after several papers noted uncertainties in estimations of the deer population and provided alternative explanations. We re-examined the case study by determining the age structure of aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) on the plateau. Aspen comprises the majority of deer browse in the summer, and the absence of a normal cohort of aspen from the 1920s would indicate deer overpopulation. The number of aspen (at 1.4 m) dating to the 1920s was an order of magnitude lower than the null expectation. Other periods of unusual numbers of aspen included high numbers of aspen dating to the 1880s and 1890s (when regular surface fires ceased), few aspen dating from 1953 to 1962 (after a second irruption of the deer population), and very high numbers from 1968 to 1992 (coincident with widespread logging). These convergent lines of evidence support the idea of extreme deer herbivory in the 1920s, consistent with food limitation of deer at high populations (bottom-up control) and predation limitation at low deer populations (top-down control). Some uncertainty remains within the overall story, and this level of ambiguity is common in case studies that involve population ecology, land management, and people at the scale of 1,000 km2 and 100 years. A complete version of the Kaibab deer story and its history would be a valuable, realistic case study for ecology texts. Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 2006 deer population nationallicence irruption nationallicence Kaibab Plateau nationallicence Grand Canyon nationallicence fire history nationallicence Binkley Dan Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA aut Moore Margaret School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, 86011, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA aut Romme William Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA aut Brown Peter Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA aut Ecosystems Springer-Verlag; www.springer-ny.com 9/2(2006-03-01), 227-241 1432-9840 9:2<227 2006 9 10021 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-005-0100-z text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-005-0100-z text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Binkley Dan Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Moore Margaret School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, 86011, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Romme William Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Brown Peter Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, 80523, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Ecosystems Springer-Verlag; www.springer-ny.com 9/2(2006-03-01), 227-241 1432-9840 9:2<227 2006 9 10021 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer