Abstract
Yellow pine chipmunks (Tamias amoenus) scatter-hoard food during summer and autumn but must form a larder as a winter food source before winter begins. Yellow pine chipmunks do not larder-hoard large quantities of food during the summer, apparently because a summer larder could not be defended from pilferers. We tested the assumption that the rate of pilferage from an unguarded larder would be significantly greater than the rate of pilferage from surface caches (which are also unguarded by yellow pine chipmunks) during the summer and autumn. Buried plastic buckets were used as artificial nests containing larders of 1000 sunflower seeds or 200 Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi) seeds. The pilferage of larder contents was monitored daily and compared to pilferage of surface caches. Animals (yellow pine chipmunks and deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus) removed sunflower seeds from caches much faster than from larders, but caches of Jeffrey pine seeds disappeared much more slowly than pine seeds in larders. Further, animals removed pine seeds from larders more quickly than they did sunflower seeds from larders. The difference between seed species was probably because sunflower seeds have much stronger odors, which rodents readily detect, and because chipmunks prefer pine seeds over sunflower seeds. Yellow pine chipmunks must spend a considerable portion of their time foraging for seeds and may not be able to defend a large larder during summer.
Recommended Citation
Vander Wall, Stephen B.; Hager, Elaine C. H.; and Kuhn, Kellie M.
(2005)
"Pilfering of stored seeds and the relative costs of scatter-hoarding versus larder-hoarding in yellow pine chipmunks,"
Western North American Naturalist: Vol. 65:
No.
2, Article 15.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/wnan/vol65/iss2/15