THE UNGULATES TO WOLVES RATIO IN THE CAUCASIAN NATURE RESERVE

摘要

The ratio between ungulate biomass as potential victims and the wolf as the main predator was studied in different parts of the Caucasian Nature Reserve: northern, eastern and southern. An optimal ratio of ungulates to wolves is shown to have been biased during a stable period in the 1980's for a number of peripheral areas of the nature reserve totaling about 50 thousand hectares in area. Following a crisis of the 1990's, these areas were joined not only by all peripheral, but also some of the central parts of the nature reserve. From the point of view of an equilibrium in the "wolf-ungulates" system, at present the functioning of the ecosystem is close to natural at best only over one-third of the territory. One of the main reasons for this lies in man's intensified economic activities of various kinds just at the borders of the nature reserve and their inevitable impacts rendered on the protected ecosystems.