Clinton T. Moore

Adaptive management is a form of structured decision-making designed to guide management of natural resource systems when their behaviors are uncertain. The basic elements of adaptive management include a setting in which a recurring decision is to be made, a stated objective of management, a set of predictive models that represent competing hypotheses about system behavior, and a program of monitoring to repeatedly assess relative credibility of the models. Thus, management itself is used to inform future management and to consequently improve conservation delivery through time. Where...

We examined stomach contents from 219 American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) collected from 4 Florida lakes. Fish, mostly shad (Dorosoma spp.), bowfin (Amia calva), and gar (Lepisosteus spp.) occurred in 55.3% of the stomachs and was the most important food group (57.5%) by volume. Apple snails (Pomacea paludosa) and crayfish (Procambarus spp.) were important invertebrate prey (66.7% occurrence and 6.6% by volume). Of the 195 stomachs having a dominant food type (>50% of the total food volume), most (72%) contained one food type exceeding 90% of the total food volume. The...

Influences of nutrition, season, area, sex, and age on physiology were estimated for 82 adult (≥1 year old) white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) collected in the Big Cypress National Preserve (BCNP), Florida, between August 1984 and June 1986. Deer were examined for fat, kidney fat index (KFI), fecal diaminopimelic acid (DAPA), abomasal parasites (APC's), overall physical condition, in utero fecundity, and lactation. Absence of seasonal variations in fat levels and KFI values may reflect a reduced need for deer in southern Florida to store fat. Differences in DAPA concentrations, APC...