The Dichotomous Trekkie 2.0

So, I've been thinking a lot about polar bears.

It seems to me that the reduction in artic ice admits a few hypothesis:

1. Less ice should result in worse hunting opportunities; as a corollary, this should result in longer periods between hunts / reduced success. This is born out by average polar bear mass decreasing in the past 50 years.
2. Less ice at the poles should result in the bears moving to glaciated landmasses, where land is more reliable. This should predict increased measured population counted in North America, most notably AK
3. Increased technology, including but not limited to radio tagging and sattelite imagery, should increase percentage of population counted during census
4. As a result of items 1-3, there should be a dramatic increase in population count of polar bears

As a result, I'm not sure how reliable the idea that "polar bear population has increased" actually is. I would expect that. What I'm much more interested in is the actual population fluctuation. I think that taking a census on a similar species and comparing it to old data might be informative. For example, if a census of, say, Arctic Foxes were taken, and they were found to increase by a factor of eight over 1950s census, we might expect a similar jump in population among polar bears, which was not found, thus leading one to expect a practical decline despite observational increases.

While foxes are a bad example, I think it gets the idea across. The problem is finding a comparable model to compare polar bears to; something else that would have been forced southerly that is carnivorous. An alternate confirmation method would be to make population adjustments to match predator:prey biomass ratios for the observed alternate species (say, foxes:rabbits in this case), and scale it to polar bears.

I'm really interested in the result of this. My bet is on polar bear count falling rather seroiusly. As a K-selected top carnivor, nothing else makes sense.

Does anyone who reads this know how biology population census for species account for updated trackign methods?

Hm, I've not blogged in a bit. Well, I'm working on the graduate school apps with a bit of a mix of physics, astrophysics, paleontology and biomechanics. Some dual applications, some single. We'll see how it plays out.

I've also finally submitted my paper to Proceedings B, and hopefully it will be accepted (or conditionally accepted).

Nah, the real trick is money. The economy sucks, finding a job has been hard, and well, not quite enough money to make rent. Ugh. Well, perhaps I'll blog on science tomorrow at the airport. In particular, Science and Nature have had a few interesting articles as of late, such as one on a new turtle find -- it has a plastron, but no upper shell -- and with teeth! Dubbed Odontochelys, it is placed phylogentically basal to all all extant and extinct testudines. While I find the use of "Ontology recapitulates phylogeny" a bit problematic, its still a very interesting read, and I feel that its sparing use in this context is justified.

It seems I blogged on science accidentally anyway. Huh. Perhaps not much, but nevertheless.