Significance of Seed Caching by Rodents for Key Plants in Natural Resource Management

摘要

Many animal's have diets that can be described as either largely or partially granivorous or consisting of seeds. Unlike plant foliage, seeds can be stored for long periods of time without being perishable or losing their nutritional value. However, seeds are also produced in short pulses and are generally not available on plants throughout the year. Consequently, many granivores cache seeds for future use during the periods when they are being produced. Seeds can be cached in one of two distinctively different fashions - either larder-hoarded within a dwelling such as a burrow or tree hollow, or scatter-hoarded in numerous, superficially buried locations throughout an animal's home range. Some seed-caching animal's specialize in one or the other ofthese caching behaviors, while others practice both types of seed caching to varying degrees.