Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes
Avoiding cache loss is critical to food-hoarding animals. Arctic foxes ( Alopex lagopus (L., 1758)) scatter-hoard thousands of eggs annually at large goose colonies, and we examined how survival rate of experimental caches were influenced by (i) nesting density by geese, (ii) relative proportion of...
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crcansciencepubl:10.1139/z07-017 2024-04-07T07:46:04+00:00 Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes Samelius, Gustaf Alisauskas, Ray T. Larivière, Serge 2007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z07-017 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/full-xml/10.1139/Z07-017 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/Z07-017 en eng Canadian Science Publishing http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/about/CorporateTextAndDataMining Canadian Journal of Zoology volume 85, issue 3, page 397-403 ISSN 0008-4301 1480-3283 Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics journal-article 2007 crcansciencepubl https://doi.org/10.1139/z07-017 2024-03-08T00:37:33Z Avoiding cache loss is critical to food-hoarding animals. Arctic foxes ( Alopex lagopus (L., 1758)) scatter-hoard thousands of eggs annually at large goose colonies, and we examined how survival rate of experimental caches were influenced by (i) nesting density by geese, (ii) relative proportion of two sympatric goose species, (iii) departure by ca. 1 million geese and their young after hatch, and (iv) age of cache sites. Survival rate of experimental caches was related to age of cache sites in the 1st year of the study (0.80 and 0.56 per 18-day period for caches from new and 1-month-old cache sites, respectively) and departure by geese in the 2nd year of the study (0.98 and 0.74 per 18-day period during and after goose nesting, respectively). These results suggest that food abundance and deterioration of cache sites (e.g., loss of soil cover and partial exposure of caches) were important factors affecting cache loss at our study site. Furthermore, annual variation in the importance of these factors suggests that strategies to prevent cache loss are not fixed in time but vary with existing conditions. Evolution of caching behaviours by arctic foxes may, thus, have been shaped by multiple selective pressures. Article in Journal/Newspaper Alopex lagopus Arctic Canadian Science Publishing Arctic Canadian Journal of Zoology 85 3 397 403 |
institution |
Open Polar |
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Canadian Science Publishing |
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crcansciencepubl |
language |
English |
topic |
Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
spellingShingle |
Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Samelius, Gustaf Alisauskas, Ray T. Larivière, Serge Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
topic_facet |
Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
description |
Avoiding cache loss is critical to food-hoarding animals. Arctic foxes ( Alopex lagopus (L., 1758)) scatter-hoard thousands of eggs annually at large goose colonies, and we examined how survival rate of experimental caches were influenced by (i) nesting density by geese, (ii) relative proportion of two sympatric goose species, (iii) departure by ca. 1 million geese and their young after hatch, and (iv) age of cache sites. Survival rate of experimental caches was related to age of cache sites in the 1st year of the study (0.80 and 0.56 per 18-day period for caches from new and 1-month-old cache sites, respectively) and departure by geese in the 2nd year of the study (0.98 and 0.74 per 18-day period during and after goose nesting, respectively). These results suggest that food abundance and deterioration of cache sites (e.g., loss of soil cover and partial exposure of caches) were important factors affecting cache loss at our study site. Furthermore, annual variation in the importance of these factors suggests that strategies to prevent cache loss are not fixed in time but vary with existing conditions. Evolution of caching behaviours by arctic foxes may, thus, have been shaped by multiple selective pressures. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Samelius, Gustaf Alisauskas, Ray T. Larivière, Serge |
author_facet |
Samelius, Gustaf Alisauskas, Ray T. Larivière, Serge |
author_sort |
Samelius, Gustaf |
title |
Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
title_short |
Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
title_full |
Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
title_fullStr |
Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
title_sort |
survival rate of experimental food caches: implications for arctic foxes |
publisher |
Canadian Science Publishing |
publishDate |
2007 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z07-017 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/full-xml/10.1139/Z07-017 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/Z07-017 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Alopex lagopus Arctic |
genre_facet |
Alopex lagopus Arctic |
op_source |
Canadian Journal of Zoology volume 85, issue 3, page 397-403 ISSN 0008-4301 1480-3283 |
op_rights |
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/about/CorporateTextAndDataMining |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1139/z07-017 |
container_title |
Canadian Journal of Zoology |
container_volume |
85 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
397 |
op_container_end_page |
403 |
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1795662468557570048 |