[Taxacom] recent evolution in response to anthropgenic insults

[Frederick W Schueler]

Taxacombers,

I know there's probably a more appropriate forum to ask this, but I 
don't know what it is, and it's such a diffuse issue that maybe holistic 
systematists are as good a forum as any.

I wonder what work has been done to study the selection of behaviours by 
which "wildlife" vertebrates avoid the widely publicized causes of 
anthopogenic mortality. That this has occurred is suggested both by a 
priori considerations, and by the apparently reduced frequency of 
roadkilled Birds and medium-size Mammals, the apparent reduction in 
panicky on-road responses to vehicles by Whitetail Deer, and the 
recovery from egg-shell thinning in raptorial birds over the past few 
decades. These are things I've noticed qualitatively in Canada, and I 
know they'd be hard to study, but I wonder if they have been studied?

fred.
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             Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
        RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
     on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
       (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
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