A lack of good homes may be hindering panda reproduction (Image: Lu Zh/NGS)
MIGHT a home construction boom help get giant pandas off the endangered list? A report this week on the effect of substandard dens on panda families suggests so.
Until recently, biologists believed that panda populations are limited mostly by the supply of their staple food, bamboo. But Ron Swaisgood of the San Diego Zoo in California and Zejun Zhang and Fuwen Wei of the Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology in Beijing, China, suspected that past logging might have deprived pandas of suitable family accommodation.…
