How do habitat changes affect the black bear?
Habitat changes are positive if they accrue positive benefits to the bears’ life needs, they are negative otherwise. In reality, this is an oversimplification. Changes in habitat often involve a suite of impacts which may vary with time of day, season, year, geography and topography, climatic changes, bear numbers and distribution, human populations and activity, and other factors. Nature is inconstant; habitat changes do occur in pristine environments but may be more abrupt, dramatic and wide-ranging in human-influenced ones. Habitat fragmentation causes large-scale changes in physiography as well as inducing biogeographic changes in fauna and flora. This fragmentation generally produces islands of remnant habitat within a human-altered landscape. The changes may alter patterns of wind, water, and nutrient flow which then affect the composition and persistence of biotic communities as well as species. Fragmentation may also facilitate invasions by exotics, isolate populations and alte
