Ungulate

ABUNDANCE - Refers to the number of individual animals . It can be expressed as relative abundance, wherein populations are ranked according to population size, or as absolute abundance, wherein the number of individuals in the population is known or estimated.

ACCURACY - A measure of how close a population estimate is to the true population size.

BIAS - The difference between the expected value of a population estimate and the true population size.

ECOREGION (CLASSIFICATION) -A unit within the ecoregion classification framework that describes units of land representing areas with similar climatic processes, physiography, vegetation zonation, and wildlife potential. Units are mapped in a hierarchical structure from ecodomain (global), ecodivision (continental), ecoprovince (subcontinental), ecoregion(provincial), to ecosection (regional).

ECOSYSTEM - An ecosystem is a functional unit consisting of all living organisms in a given area and all the non-living physical and chemical factors of the environment; can be of any size, but functions as a whole unit; also, see Ecoregion classification.

POPULATION - A group of animals that occupy a certain area at a certain time as defined by the survey objectives. This is an operational definition for inventory, and may not be adequate from either an ecological or genetic perspective.

POPULATION INDEX - A statistic that is related to population size.

POPULATION MONITORING - The process of collecting and analyzing demographic information to evaluate population status and trend.

PRECISION - A measure of how close a population estimate is to its expected value.

RECRUITMENT - The number of animals within a population at a specified stage of life, usually juveniles at one year of age.

[Back to TOC] [Previous] [Next]

Published by the Resources Inventory Committee