Forage Selection By The American Pika (Ochotona Princeps): Comparing Vegetation Communities, Pika Harvesting And Plant Nutrition In Contrasting Habitats

摘要

Understanding the relationship between animal populations and the vegetativeheterogeneity of their native habitat is becoming increasingly important as natural resourceextraction, such as mining, becomes a dominant influence on landscapes in the southerninteriorof British Columbia. Identifying how wildlife (particularly herbivores) are able touse anthropogenic plant species will allow us to better manage the quality and quantity offorage in these anthropogenic ecosystems. Reclamation initiatives at Highland ValleyCopper Mine focus on converting waste-rock and dump site locations into land that supportsplant communities composed of agronomic and native species. The presence of AmericanPikas (Ochotona princeps) in this and surrounding landscapes creates an opportunity toinvestigate the plants harvested by these animals compared to that available, and also howthis pattern varies between natural and anthropogenic habitats. In August 2013, I surveyedthe plant communities surrounding a variety of pre-established pika den sites, finding thatnative and anthropogenic locations showed little similarity in terms of plant species diversity,particularly in terms of the most abundant species within each location. An examination ofpika haypiles (harvest piles) in October 2013 showed that although common plants werebeing harvested, the animals also used plants that were less common. Plant species identifiedas most abundant within the haypiles were primarily shrubs, forbs and grasses. I alsodetermined that the plants harvested by the pikas were not necessarily the most abundant northe most nutritional. Overall, this study revealed the foraging and dietary plasticity of pikasin this region, and in tandem with a larger, overarching project, provides an improvedunderstanding of the pika population inhabiting this atypical environment.