Seed value influences cache pilfering rates by desert rodents

Integrative Zoology
Stephen B Vander WallJoseph D M White

Abstract

Some rodents gather and store seeds. How many seeds they gather and how they treat those seeds is largely determined by seed traits such as mass, nutrient content, hardness of the seed coat, presence of secondary compounds, and germination schedule. Through their consumption and dispersal of seeds, rodents act as agents of natural selection on seed traits, and those traits influence how rodents forage. Many seeds that are scatter-hoarded by rodents are pilfered, or stolen, by other rodents, and seed traits also likely influence pilfering rates and seed fates of pilfered seeds. To clarify coevolutionary relationships between rodents and the plants that they disperse, one needs to understand the role of seed traits in rodent foraging decisions. We compared how the seeds of 4 species of plants that are dispersed by scatter-hoarding animals and that differ in value (singleleaf piñon pine, Pinus monophylla; desert peach, Prunus andersonii; antelope bitterbrush, Purshia tridentata; Utah juniper, Juniperus osteosperma) were pilfered and recached by rodents. One hundred artificial caches of the 4 seed species (25 per species) were prepared, and removal by rodents was monitored. Rodents pilfered high-value seeds more rapidly than the ot...Continue Reading

References

Oct 10, 2003·Oecologia·Jennifer L Hollander, Stephen B Vander Wall
Jun 19, 2008·Oecologia·Kellie M Kuhn, Stephen B Vander Wall
Feb 17, 2010·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Stephen B Vander Wall
Jul 18, 2012·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Patrick A JansenRoland Kays
Nov 21, 2015·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Nathanael I LichtiRobert K Swihart

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Citations

Jan 13, 2021·Integrative Zoology·Lindsay A Dimitri, William S Longland

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