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Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas

Foraging decisions by rodents are key for the long-term maintenance of oak populations in which avian seed dispersers are absent or inefficient. Decisions are determined by the environmental setting in which acorn-rodent encounters occur. In particular, seed value, competition and predation risks ha...

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Autores principales: Morán-López, Teresa, Sánchez-Dávila, Jesús, Torre, Ignasi, Navarro-Castilla, Alvaro, Barja, Isabel, Díaz, Mario
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9377575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35969588
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260419
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author Morán-López, Teresa
Sánchez-Dávila, Jesús
Torre, Ignasi
Navarro-Castilla, Alvaro
Barja, Isabel
Díaz, Mario
author_facet Morán-López, Teresa
Sánchez-Dávila, Jesús
Torre, Ignasi
Navarro-Castilla, Alvaro
Barja, Isabel
Díaz, Mario
author_sort Morán-López, Teresa
collection PubMed
description Foraging decisions by rodents are key for the long-term maintenance of oak populations in which avian seed dispersers are absent or inefficient. Decisions are determined by the environmental setting in which acorn-rodent encounters occur. In particular, seed value, competition and predation risks have been found to modify rodent foraging decisions in forest and human-modified habitats. Nonetheless, there is little information about their joint effects on rodent behavior, and hence, local acorn dispersal (or predation). In this work, we manipulate and model the mouse-oak interaction in a Spanish dehesa, an anthropogenic savanna system in which nearby areas can show contrasting levels of ungulate densities and antipredatory cover. First, we conducted a large-scale cafeteria field experiment, where we modified ungulate presence and predation risk, and followed mouse foraging decisions under contrasting levels of moonlight and acorn availability. Then, we estimated the net effects of competition and risk by means of a transition probability model that simulated mouse foraging decisions. Our results show that mice are able to adapt their foraging decisions to the environmental context, affecting initial fates of handled acorns. Under high predation risks mice foraged opportunistically carrying away large and small seeds, whereas under safe conditions large acorns tended to be predated in situ. In addition, in the presence of ungulates lack of antipredatory cover around trees reduced mice activity outside tree canopies, and hence, large acorns had a higher probability of survival. Overall, our results point out that inter-specific interactions preventing efficient foraging by scatter-hoarders can reduce acorn predation. This suggests that the maintenance of the full set of seed consumers as well as top predators in dehesas may be key for promoting local dispersal.
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spelling pubmed-93775752022-08-16 Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas Morán-López, Teresa Sánchez-Dávila, Jesús Torre, Ignasi Navarro-Castilla, Alvaro Barja, Isabel Díaz, Mario PLoS One Research Article Foraging decisions by rodents are key for the long-term maintenance of oak populations in which avian seed dispersers are absent or inefficient. Decisions are determined by the environmental setting in which acorn-rodent encounters occur. In particular, seed value, competition and predation risks have been found to modify rodent foraging decisions in forest and human-modified habitats. Nonetheless, there is little information about their joint effects on rodent behavior, and hence, local acorn dispersal (or predation). In this work, we manipulate and model the mouse-oak interaction in a Spanish dehesa, an anthropogenic savanna system in which nearby areas can show contrasting levels of ungulate densities and antipredatory cover. First, we conducted a large-scale cafeteria field experiment, where we modified ungulate presence and predation risk, and followed mouse foraging decisions under contrasting levels of moonlight and acorn availability. Then, we estimated the net effects of competition and risk by means of a transition probability model that simulated mouse foraging decisions. Our results show that mice are able to adapt their foraging decisions to the environmental context, affecting initial fates of handled acorns. Under high predation risks mice foraged opportunistically carrying away large and small seeds, whereas under safe conditions large acorns tended to be predated in situ. In addition, in the presence of ungulates lack of antipredatory cover around trees reduced mice activity outside tree canopies, and hence, large acorns had a higher probability of survival. Overall, our results point out that inter-specific interactions preventing efficient foraging by scatter-hoarders can reduce acorn predation. This suggests that the maintenance of the full set of seed consumers as well as top predators in dehesas may be key for promoting local dispersal. Public Library of Science 2022-08-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9377575/ /pubmed/35969588 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260419 Text en © 2022 Morán-López et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Morán-López, Teresa
Sánchez-Dávila, Jesús
Torre, Ignasi
Navarro-Castilla, Alvaro
Barja, Isabel
Díaz, Mario
Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
title Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
title_full Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
title_fullStr Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
title_full_unstemmed Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
title_short Ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
title_sort ungulate presence and predation risks reduce acorn predation by mice in dehesas
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9377575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35969588
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260419
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