Al Senner wrote:
John Polk wrote:
If they have a lean, hungry winter, they will be much less likely to reproduce.
Abundance of food promotes abundance of squirrels.
Not according to Geoff Lawton! He made a big deal about how infertility clinics are only in wealthy countries and poor people (and animals) are more fertile. I guess they need to breed more if the mortality rate is high.
C.J. do you think perhaps that is because of the increased use of medications and processed foods?
No, although I'm not sure what kind of research has been done. You'd need to find "wealthy" populations that don't use medications or processed foods. It could be done with non-humans but I don't know if it has.
It is a well-known "permaculture" observation. As I mentioned before, if you stress some plants they will produce more as a direct reaction to the stress like, say, coppicing. You wont get many big shoots, but you will get more total shoots than if you did not stress (cut) the plant. Hazelnuts are a plant that reacts that way.
BTW, hit the QUOTE button to easily quote. It's brown on the right side of the screen between the thumbs up (+1) & report buttons.