WASSMER ET AL.: SOUTH-CENTRAL FLORIDA BOBCAT ECOLOGY 223

(F8), the daughter had been marking at the mother's home range boundary
prior to the adult's disappearance, and there were no apparent attempts by
neighboring adult females to invade the range. This suggests that continued
marking along the boundary, even by a different individual, served to maintain
the integrity of the range.


 CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS


 Several findings of this study appear relevant to conservation and
management of bobcat populations. Our data indicate that even when not
subject to significant direct exploitation by trapping or hunting, Florida bobcat
populations may experience high mortality from natural and man-related
causes. If, as found for the Canada lynx (Brand and Keith 1979), hunting and
trapping mortality in bobcat populations is additive rather than compensatory,
the mortality rate may be very high even in relatively lightly harvested
populations. The importance of adult mortality in the population dynamics of
bobcats was demonstrated by simulations based on data from Mississippi,
indicating that a given percentage change in annual adult mortality has about
twice the effect on population size as a similar change in litter size or kitten
survival (Gluesing et al. 1987).
 Most of the known litters were produced in the core area and females with
young litters concentrated their activity there. General observations indicated
that food resources also were better in the core than in the remainder of the
study area, and all cases of man-related mortality occurred in the surrounding
semi-developed area. This illustrates the important role of large tracts of
protected habitat in developed areas in maintaining regional populations of
bobcats and other large, mobile vertebrates. In landscapes characterized by
interspersed natural and developed areas, the former probably serve as the
primary source of new individuals and the latter as population sinks.
 Death of resident individuals had a marked effect on the spatial
 relationships of surviving bobcats of the same sex. This is a factor that
 deserves consideration in assessing the potential impact of harvesting on a
 population. The disruption of the social organization of the population
 resulting from increased removal of individuals may lead to reduced
 productivity and an increase in mortality from other causes. Hornocker and
 Bailey (1986) also stressed the potential effect of man-caused mortality in fetid
 populations in "creating behavioral instability and keeping the social
 organization in a perpetual state of flux."
 In this study disease was a major cause of mortality and may play a more
 important role in bobcat population dynamics than previously suspected.
 Without relatively intensive and long-term monitoring of an adequate number