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Fox Squirrels Match Food Assessment and Cache Effort to Value and Scarcity

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  • Mikel M Delgado
  • Molly Nicholas
  • Daniel J Petrie
  • Lucia F Jacobs

Abstract

Scatter hoarders must allocate time to assess items for caching, and to carry and bury each cache. Such decisions should be driven by economic variables, such as the value of the individual food items, the scarcity of these items, competition for food items and risk of pilferage by conspecifics. The fox squirrel, an obligate scatter-hoarder, assesses cacheable food items using two overt movements, head flicks and paw manipulations. These behaviors allow an examination of squirrel decision processes when storing food for winter survival. We measured wild squirrels' time allocations and frequencies of assessment and investment behaviors during periods of food scarcity (summer) and abundance (fall), giving the squirrels a series of 15 items (alternating five hazelnuts and five peanuts). Assessment and investment per cache increased when resource value was higher (hazelnuts) or resources were scarcer (summer), but decreased as scarcity declined (end of sessions). This is the first study to show that assessment behaviors change in response to factors that indicate daily and seasonal resource abundance, and that these factors may interact in complex ways to affect food storing decisions. Food-storing tree squirrels may be a useful and important model species to understand the complex economic decisions made under natural conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikel M Delgado & Molly Nicholas & Daniel J Petrie & Lucia F Jacobs, 2014. "Fox Squirrels Match Food Assessment and Cache Effort to Value and Scarcity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-8, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0092892
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092892
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Fowells, H.A. & Schubert, G.H., 1956. "Seed Crops of Forest Trees in the Pine Region of California," Technical Bulletins 157141, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Michael A. Steele & Thomas A. Contreras & Leila Z. Hadj-Chikh & Salvatore J. Agosta & Peter D. Smallwood & Chioma N. Tomlinson, 2014. "Do scatter hoarders trade off increased predation risks for lower rates of cache pilferage?," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 25(1), pages 206-215.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mekala Sundaram & Janna R Willoughby & Nathanael I Lichti & Michael A Steele & Robert K Swihart, 2015. "Segregating the Effects of Seed Traits and Common Ancestry of Hardwood Trees on Eastern Gray Squirrel Foraging Decisions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-16, June.

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