• Although black bears originally occurred throughout the lower southeastern coastal plain, bear densities were probably historically greater within bottomland hardwood and other forested communities where hard (acorns and nuts) and soft mast (berries and fleshy fruits) production was higher than in the fire-maintained, pine-dominated upland communities.

• Sparse populations can often avoid pathogens and herbivory. Pinus ponderosa, which may have been restricted to small refugia in Arizona and New Mexico at the end of the last Ice Age, has become the most widespread pine in the western United States; it now occurs from Mexico to Canada, and from California to Nebraska.

• In New Mexico, Mexican long-nosed bats inhabit upper desert scrub and pine-oak woodlands in or near mountainous areas.