Our Livtiii^ Rt'sount\s 



Preface 



This report is the first of a series of reports on 

 the status and trends of the nation's plants, 

 animals, and ecosystems. It represents an effort 

 to bridge the gap between scientists and 

 resource managers, policy makers, and the gen- 

 eral public. Usually, scientists tend to write for 

 scientific journals and communicate with other 

 scientists: this report attempts to collect a great 

 vainety of scientific data and inteipret it for the 

 nonscientist while maintaining the full credibil- 

 ity of the data. 



The articles included represent both invited 

 and contributed papers; that is, where we could 



identify specific subject experts, we invited 

 them to submit papers, and we also accepted 

 papers contributed by other authors. Following 

 scientific tradition, each article submitted was 

 peer-reviewed, usually by three anonymous sci- 

 entific reviewers. The articles are often 

 abridged from a complete scientific treatise, but 

 each article contains references and personal 

 contacts if the reader is interested in pursuing 

 the subject in greater depth. Finally, we recog- 

 nize that this report is incomplete and that more 

 status and trends data exist than we were able to 

 uncover or incorporate into one volume. 



In Memoriam 



Edward Terhune LaRoe III 



Senior science editor Ted LaRoe died of can- 

 cer October 19, 1994, having shepherded this 

 report almost to its completion. Had he lived to 

 see Our Living Resources published, he would 

 not have lingered to bask in its accomplishment. 

 He would have moved on to new projects, new 

 plateaus, for Ted always had a vision, a sense of 

 w here he was going. He also had a vision for the 

 National Biological Service, which he was 

 instrumental in helping to create. 



Ted was bright, creative, inquisitive, inspir- 

 ing, and a man of many accomplishments. His 

 scientific leadership was evident in his active 

 role in issues relating to wetland science, glob- 

 al climate change, coastal resources, ecosys- 

 tem-based management, and, of course, NBS. 

 Above all, he was a champion of scientific 

 integrity, which, we trust, is evident in this 

 report. We hope he would have been pleased. 



