Dry season = 1.00E-05 animal/m²

Wet season = 5.00E-06 animal/m²

Environmental Impact of the Big Cypress Jetport. By United States Dept of the Interior, Spt. 1969 and expert estimation (Dalrymple, G., pers. com.).

*For the wet season half of the dry season was used, assuming that the area in which this animal feeds and lives is half as much.*

Biomass per animal = 5000 g (wet weight)

Peterson, R.T., 1991.

dry weight/wet weight ratio (dw/ww) = 0.35

gramms of carbon/gramms of dry weight = 0.45

Jorgensen, S.E., et al., 1991.

Basal metabolism = 0.014794 Kcal/gww per day

Free living metabolism = basal metabolism x 2

Free living metabolism = Respiration = 0.029587 Kcal/gww*day

Mean food caloric content = 4.5 Kcal/g of dry weight

Mean food Carbon content = 45% of dry weight

Odum, E.P., C.E. Connell and L. B. Davenport, 1962; McNab B.K., 1980; Jorgensen, S.E., et al., 1991.

P/B Production/Biomass ratio(P/B) = 0.678 yearly rate

Banse, K. and S. Mosher, 1980.

Egestion/Consumption ratio (E/C) = 0.35

Jorgensen, S.E., et al., 1991.

Opossums consume the following: Understory, Hardwood Leaves, Terrestrial Invertebrates and Vertebrate Detritus.

Peterson, R.T., 1991; Rare and endengered biota of Florida. Mammals.,1978.