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Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food

The mutualistic interaction between scatter-hoarding rodents and their seed plants is highly complex yet poorly understood. Plants may benefit from the seed dispersal behavior of rodents, as long as seed consumption is minimized. In parallel, rodents may maximize foraging efficiency and cache high-q...

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Autores principales: Wang, Bo, Chen, Jin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202532/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22046284
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026424
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author Wang, Bo
Chen, Jin
author_facet Wang, Bo
Chen, Jin
author_sort Wang, Bo
collection PubMed
description The mutualistic interaction between scatter-hoarding rodents and their seed plants is highly complex yet poorly understood. Plants may benefit from the seed dispersal behavior of rodents, as long as seed consumption is minimized. In parallel, rodents may maximize foraging efficiency and cache high-quality resources for future consumption. Defensive compounds, such as tannins, are thought to be a major mechanism for plant control over rodent behavior. However, previous studies, using naturally occurring seeds, have not provided conclusive evidence supporting this hypothesis. Here, we test the importance of tannin concentrations on the scatter-hoarding behavior of rodents by using an artificial seed system. We combined feeding trials and field observations to examine the overall impact of seed tannin concentrations on rodent behavior and health. We found that rodents favored seeds with an intermediate amount of tannin (∼5%) in the field. Meanwhile, in rodents that were fed a diet with different tannin content, only diets with high tannin content (25%, 15%, and 10%) caused a significant negative influence on rodent survival and health. Significant differences were not found among treatments with tannin levels of 0–5%. In contrast to many existing studies, our results clearly demonstrate that scatter-hoarding rodents prefer slightly ‘astringent’ food. In the co-evolutionary arms race between plants and animals, our results suggest that while tannins may play a significant role in reducing general predation levels by the faunal community, they have no precise control over the behavior of their mutualistic partner. Instead, the two partners appear to have reached an evolutionary point where both parties receive adequate benefits, with the year-to-year outcome being dependent on a wide range of factors beyond the control of either partner.
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spelling pubmed-32025322011-11-01 Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food Wang, Bo Chen, Jin PLoS One Research Article The mutualistic interaction between scatter-hoarding rodents and their seed plants is highly complex yet poorly understood. Plants may benefit from the seed dispersal behavior of rodents, as long as seed consumption is minimized. In parallel, rodents may maximize foraging efficiency and cache high-quality resources for future consumption. Defensive compounds, such as tannins, are thought to be a major mechanism for plant control over rodent behavior. However, previous studies, using naturally occurring seeds, have not provided conclusive evidence supporting this hypothesis. Here, we test the importance of tannin concentrations on the scatter-hoarding behavior of rodents by using an artificial seed system. We combined feeding trials and field observations to examine the overall impact of seed tannin concentrations on rodent behavior and health. We found that rodents favored seeds with an intermediate amount of tannin (∼5%) in the field. Meanwhile, in rodents that were fed a diet with different tannin content, only diets with high tannin content (25%, 15%, and 10%) caused a significant negative influence on rodent survival and health. Significant differences were not found among treatments with tannin levels of 0–5%. In contrast to many existing studies, our results clearly demonstrate that scatter-hoarding rodents prefer slightly ‘astringent’ food. In the co-evolutionary arms race between plants and animals, our results suggest that while tannins may play a significant role in reducing general predation levels by the faunal community, they have no precise control over the behavior of their mutualistic partner. Instead, the two partners appear to have reached an evolutionary point where both parties receive adequate benefits, with the year-to-year outcome being dependent on a wide range of factors beyond the control of either partner. Public Library of Science 2011-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC3202532/ /pubmed/22046284 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026424 Text en Wang, Chen. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wang, Bo
Chen, Jin
Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food
title Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food
title_full Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food
title_fullStr Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food
title_full_unstemmed Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food
title_short Scatter-Hoarding Rodents Prefer Slightly Astringent Food
title_sort scatter-hoarding rodents prefer slightly astringent food
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202532/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22046284
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026424
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