Abstract
THE problems of animal population and migration have aroused increasing interest of recent years, and in stressing the need of a central institute in India, Major Roonwal, assistant superintendent of the Zoological Survey, will have the sympathy of most naturalists (Sci. and Culture, 11, 10 ; 1945-46). Attention is directed to similar work in other countries, especially in the United States, with its Fish and Wild Life Service, and the U.S.S.R., where very extensive studies have been made on animal populations, those on mammals and insects being the most extensive. In the U.S.S.R. there is a tendency to seek for causes of fluctuation in climate, and experimental work on the American model is not much in vogue. British research on the subject has been largely centred at the Bureau of Animal Population, Oxford, under the direction of Mr. C. Elton. Its practical applications are of the highest value to agriculture, fisheries and public health. Plagues of insects and mammals, especially rodents, are familiar to agriculturists the world over, and even in normal times their depredations arexenormous. Fisheries fluctuate from year to year, and up to now little is known of the factors which govern the natural periodic rhythms of fish populations.
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Animal Population Research in India. Nature 157, 156–157 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157156c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157156c0