AMERICAN BISON: A NATURAL HISTORY
AMERICAN BISON: A NATURAL HISTORY
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美洲野牛：自然历史
DOI：
10.2307/3802727
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发表时间：
2002
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
D. F. Lott
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. O. Wolff;D. F. Lott
这是加州大学出版社出版的《生物与环境》系列的第六本，是加州大学戴维斯分校名誉教授戴尔·洛特的自然历史和个人记述的汇编，他于今年早些时候去世。洛特教授的个人历史与野牛是长期和深刻的，他的外祖父曾担任第一个联邦野牛避难所，国家野牛范围，在蒙大拿州西部的第一任负责人。洛特在那里度过了他最初的几年，认识那些在早期保护工作中发挥核心作用的人，并深受这段经历的影响。在他的学术生涯，其中跨越了1965年至1994年，洛特集中在他的研究部分野牛的行为和人口统计，但这本书是更多方面的。第一部分共分三章，以作者亲身经历的轶事，生动地描述了野牛的行为，描述了不同性别和年龄组之间相互作用的重要事件。这些出色的描绘让读者感受到了近距离观察野牛几个小时是什么感觉，洛特显然做到了这一点。三章中的第二节是生态生理学的，解释了能量从草原草类通过野牛消化系统流动产生野牛薯片的过程。这个系统的原理对许多读者来说都很熟悉，但仍然很有趣，而且描绘得很好。书的第三部分回顾了野牛在过去一百万年左右的进化，并探讨了欧洲人到达时有多少野牛居住在大陆上的有趣问题。洛特的结论是，传统估计的6000万人高出了几千万。下一节，
This, the sixth in the Organisms and Environments series from the University of California Press, is a compilation of natural history and personal accounts by Dale Lott, an Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Davis, who died earlier this year. Professor Lott’s personal history with bison was long and deep, his maternal grandfather having served as the first superintendent of the first federal bison refuge, the National Bison Range, in western Montana. Lott spent some of his first years there, knew people who figured centrally in early conservation efforts, and was deeply affected by the experience. During his academic career, which spanned the years 1965–1994, Lott focused his research in part on bison behavior and demography, but this book is more multifaceted. The first section, comprising three chapters, describes bison behavior vividly, using anecdotes from the author’s experience to exemplify important events in the interactions among various sex and age cohorts. These excellent portrayals give the reader a sense for what it is like to observe bison close at hand for many hours, which Lott clearly did. The second section of three chapters is ecophysiological, explaining the process by which energy flows from prairie grasses through bison digestive systems to produce bison chips. The principles of this system will be familiar to many readers, but are still interesting and well portrayed. Part 3 of the book reviews bison evolution in the last million or so years and explores the interesting question of how many bison populated the continent when Europeans arrived. Lott concludes that the traditional estimate of 60 million is high by a few tens of millions. The next section,