The Role of Weather in Determining the Distribution and Abundance of Animals

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that weather is a component of the environment of animals which effectively determines the limits to distribution and the abundance of some species. Short term and long term changes in weather determine short term and long term changes in distribution and abundance. That weather can be effective in determining the limits of abundance within the distribution of an animal has been doubted by some ecologists who believed that only "density-dependent" factors can "determine" the density of populations. Density dependent factors or as they have more recently been called "density-governing" factors are defined as those factors which "permit populations to grow when at relatively low densities, and oppose growth when the densities become relatively high" (see Nicholson, 1954). Weather is not classed as a "density governing" factor because it is claimed that it does not react to a change in density of animals. The...