Fewer than 40 Amur leopards can be found in the wild, making it
difficult to use traditional methods to track what has impacted
the species over time. University of Minnesota doctoral
candidate Sergey Berg published research this year on how Amur
leopard cubs’ survival rates impact broader population trends
over time. The research, which he began as an undergraduate in
2008, will be used as an example in a book on mathematical
modeling. “You can’t really risk experimenting on animals when
there are so few of them,” said the College of Food,
Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences student. “I thought
it would be cool to look at their population dynamics and
analyze a specific aspect of it to try to help their
conservation.” Biologists use reliable techniques like tagging
to track and mathematically model larger species populations,
but small populations like the Amur leopard are harder to model,
Berg said. The eastern Russia leopards had much larger
populations until massive habitat loss and human conflict