Rodents may move seeds away from maternal trees, reducing densitiy dependent mortality, avoiding pathogens, decreasing negative interactions with parents, and increasing the probability of seeds finding suitable sites for germination.

Yes, I think so. I want to know more about the contribution rate of rodents to forest regeneration. Does it really play a very important and effective role?

thanks

Rodents (and other small mammals and birds) have definitely an important role in forest regeneration. You should also link your research to masting (abundant fruition episodes) because there is a great variability in rodents' behaviour (and of course its effects) in respect to these events.

You should check on:

Ostfeld, R. S., Jones, C. G., and Wolff, J. O. (1996). Of mice and mast. BioScience, 46(5), 323-330.

Clotfelter, E. D., Pedersen, A. B., Cranford, J. A., Ram, N., Snajdr, E. A., Nolan, V., and Ketterson, E. D. (2007). Acorn mast drives long-term dynamics of rodent and songbird populations. Oecologia, 154(3), 493-503.

McShea, W. J. (2000). The influence of acorn crops on annual variation in rodent and bird populations. Ecology, 81(1), 228-238.

Zwolak, R., Bogdziewicz, M., and Rychlik, L. (2016). Beech masting modifies the response of rodents to forest management. Forest Ecology and Management, 359, 268-276.

You suggestion is very usefull for me.

Thank you very much.

Hi Haibin,

Glad to be of help. It is an interesting topic and I would surely follow your updates.

Hi Ciprian and thanks for your attention!

I want to carry out some studies on the animal-meditated (small rodents, birds, mammal, etc ) facilitate forest communities restoration in the future.

Do you have any suggestions for me?

Look forward to further communication with you.

Hello Haibin; Caching of seeds of many Pines and Oaks is very well studied. The variety of caching you seem to be interested in is referred to as scatter hoarding. In the western US the two best studied scatterhoarders include the Douglas Squirrel, Tamiasciurus douglasii and Clark's Nutcracker, a corvid, Nucifraga columbiana. The seeds they stash and forget seem to be very important aspects of the recruitment of new seedlings for these tree species. The Florida Jay, Aphelocoma coerulescens, is another bird that is well studied. You can find an entry to that literature at Google Scholar. These species evidently have a spectacular memory of where they stashed thousands of seeds but any hoarder that dies leaves a legacy of seeds to germnate. Lovely stuff. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

James Des LauriersHi, Prof. James. Thank you for your answer. I think the bird is a very important seed disperser.

There is a big literature on the dispersal of pine seeds by scatter-horading rodents in China (e.g. see WANG Bo on ResearchGate) and the USA (Vander Wall and others), and also on dispersal by corvid birds in the USA. Also, most pine seeds are winged and dispersed initially by wind. There is an even bigger literature on oaks, with the same animal dispersal agents, but no wings: e.g. Zhang Zhibin, Xiao Zhishu, Wang Bao, Cao Lin in China, and other people in Japan, Europe, and North America.

Squirrels usually store the pine seeds for winter feeding. But they usually do not remember all those sites where the seeds are stored and thus indirectly help in pine germination. The association can be slightly complex to understand because the rates at which they remove the pine seeds and the amount which actually gets contributed to regeneration needs to be understood. I need to look at the literature though.

Hi Murali. I am doubtful that the rodents forget the sites. More likely, they either store more than they need - a sensible strategy in a variable climate - or they die. I wonder if anyone has investigated this? Richard

Hello Prof. Corlett. Yes it is indeed true. Please have a look at the link provided below. But yes, it differs between the species.

http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/squirrel-hoarding/