Effects of Food Abundance on Individuals and Populations of the Rock Mouse (Peromyscus difficilis)

Galindo-Leal, Carlos

doi:10.2307/1383004

Cited by 28 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The eating habits and availability of food resources are essential aspects to understanding populations and communities of mammals, life-history strategies, and ecological roles of animals (DeBlase and Martin 1980;Meserve et al 1988;Galindo-Leal and Krebs 1998;Martinez et al 1990). Information about the eating habits of small herbivorous mammals, mainly rodents, is scarce due to their efficient food mastication, which results in small fragments, which are difficult to identify (Hansson 1970).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet of some species of Neotropical small mammals

et al. 2008

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Dietary analysis was performed to determine the variations in diet of some small neotropical species of mammals collected in seasonal areas of the cerrado (a savannah-like grassland) and semi-deciduous forest. Food items were determined based on the analysis of stomach contents of 126 animals (one didelphid and five sigmodontine rodent species). Most species presented herbivorous-omnivorous habits, with a preference for the vegetative parts of plants. Akodon montensis Thomas (1913) was the most abundant species in the forest area and demonstrated a uniform consumption of animal and vegetal items through the year, and contained 65.7% plant material in its diet. Necromys lasiurus (Lund, 1841) was the most abundant in the cerrado with 72.6% of vegetation in its diet, but showed a high consumption of animal items during the rainy season. Oligoryzomys nigripes (Olfers, 1818) contained 95.1% of plant material, while Oxymycterus delator (Thomas, 1903) consumed 61.6% invertebrates, mainly insects. The didelphid Philander frenatus (Olfers, 1818) consumed invertebrates (47.7%), small vertebrates (7.3%) and plant material (44.9%).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet of some species of Neotropical small mammals

et al. 2008

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“…Indeed, a number of experiments have been conducted on rodents and other mammals to test their responses to varying food availability, either by providing 392 C. Jackson and R. T. F. Bernard populations with long-term food supplementation (Alibhai, 1985;Cittadino et al, 1994;Duquette and Millar, 1995;Galindo-Leal and Krebs, 1998;Millar et al, 1998), shortterm food supplementation (Pinter and Negus, 1965), shortterm food deprivation (Bazhan et al, 1996) or long-term food restriction (Hamilton and Bronson, 1985). Although these experiments have used different approaches to study the effects of food availability, the fundamental results are similar.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although these experiments have used different approaches to study the effects of food availability, the fundamental results are similar. Animals that are provided with a food supplement of either green plant matter (Pinter and Negus, 1965;Alibhai, 1985) or oats and sunflower seeds (Galindo-Leal and Krebs, 1998) all show an increase in reproductive activity, while mice exposed to either short-term or longterm food deprivation all experience some form of depression of reproductive activity (Hamilton and Bronson, 1994;Bazhan et al, 1996). In studies involving both males and females of a species, the females respond to a greater extent than do the males (wild house mouse: Hamilton and Bronson, 1994;Pampean grassland mouse: Cittadino et al, 1994;rock mouse: Galindo-Leal and Krebs, 1995) and it has been suggested that females are generally more susceptible to reproductive inhibition than are males (Bronson, 1989;Bronson and Heideman, 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender differences in the inhibitory effects of a reduction in ambient temperature and a reduction in food quantity on reproduction in the Southern African rodent, Rhabdomys pumilio

Jackson¹

2001

Reproduction

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Most rodents are small and suffer the thermoregulatory problems associated with a high surface area to volume ratio. In addition, their small size restricts their ability to store large amounts of fat and limits their ability to migrate; hence, reproduction is inhibited readily by factors such as a reduction in ambient temperature and reduction in the quantity or quality of food (Bronson, 1989). Although their small size leaves them susceptible to reproductive inhibition, most rodents have short lifespans and, thus, evolutionary forces will favour continuous reproduction unless reproductive inhibition results in an extended lifespan (Bronson, 1989). Thus, reproduction in small mammals is a trade-off between evolutionary pressure for continuous reproduction in a short lifespan and susceptibility to environmental inhibition of reproduction. Therefore, the timing of rodent reproduction is usually shaped by complex interactions between a range of environmental, physiological and social factors (Harvey and Zammuto, 1985;Partridge and Harvey, 1985;Bronson, 1989;Read and Harvey, 1989;Promislow and Harvey, 1990;Bronson and Heideman, 1994) and it is for this reason that small mammals show such a diverse array of patterns of reproduction. Bernard and Hall, 1995). At temperate latitudes the climate is strongly seasonal and predictable, and most species and populations of small mammals use photoperiodic cues to trigger and inhibit reproductive activity (Clarke, 1985;Bronson, 1989;Nelson et al., 1992;Bronson and Heideman, 1994). However, at lower latitudes the seasons are often far less predictable (Jackson and Bernard, 1999) and the extent of the seasonal change in daylength is less than at temperate latitudes and, for these reasons, it has been predicted that the use of photoperiod as a cue for controlling reproduction will decrease with decreasing latitude (Bronson, 1989;Bronson and Heideman, 1994). Indeed, there is increasing support for this prediction and photoperiod has little effect on reproduction in Pteropus scapulatus (O'Brien et al., 1993), Saccostomus campestris (Bernard and Hall, 1995), Rhabdomys pumilio (Jackson and Bernard, 1999) and Cavia aperea (Trillmich, 2000) from subtropical and tropical latitudes. At lower latitudes, more variable factors such as rainfall, ambient temperature, food availability and food quality, or a combination of these factors, may be used by rodents to control their reproduction and a more flexible, opportunistic reproductive activity will result.Rhabdomys pumilio, the four-striped field mouse, is a ResearchThe effects of a reduction in ambient temperature (from 26ЊC to 15ЊC) and a 10% reduction in daily food consumption on reproductively active male and female four-striped field mice (Rhabdomys pumilio) were investigated. In male R. pumilio, both reduced ambient temperature and a reduction in food quantity had an inhibitory effect on spermatogenesis and on size of the reproductive organs, and this was greatest when the two factors were combined and the effect of fat was removed. ...

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“…Moreover, food addition may have positive effects on fitness components such as body condition (Lunn & Stirling, 1985;Lindstr¨om, 1989), reproductive rates (Persson, 2005) or litter and clutch size (Angerbj¨orn et al, 1991;Koskela et al, 1998), and on population parameters such as rates of survival (Schoech et al, 2008), dispersal (Warrick, Scrivner & O'Farrell, 1999) or recruitment (Boutin, 1990;Galindo-Leal & Krebs, 1998). However, although many food addition experiments evaluate the influence of supplemental food on these parameters (Boutin, 1990;Jones & Reynolds, 2008;Robb et al, 2008), few studies have explicitly examined its utility as a conservation tool and whether its implementation reaches specific conservation goals (Elliot, Merton & Jansen, 2001;Gonz´alez et al, 2006;Schoech et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Food supplementation was apparently useful to feed and retain lynx during several years of severe rabbit scarcity (L´opez-Bao, Rodr´ıguez & Palomares, 2008), but its potential to increase lynx carrying capacity remains unclear. An increase in carrying capacity is expected to be indirectly favoured by supplemental food through reduction of home-range (HR) size (Sandell, 1989;Litvaitis et al, 1996;Fuller & Sievert, 2001;Mitchell & Powell, 2004), and an increase in reproductive success, litter size, kitten's condition and survival (Boutin, 1990;Angerbj¨orn et al, 1991;Dewey & Kennedy, 2001), which may translate at the population level into reduced dispersal and increased immigration followed by settlement (Boutin, 1990;Galindo-Leal & Krebs, 1998;Warrick, Scrivner & O'Farrell, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of food supplementation on home‐range size, reproductive success, productivity and recruitment in a small population of Iberian lynx

López‐Bao¹,

Palomares²,

Rodrı́guez³

et al. 2010

Animal Conservation

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In a conservation context, food supplementation is a management tool used to reverse the decline of food-limited populations by means of positive changes in behaviour and fitness that may be reflected in population parameters. The critically endangered Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus has suffered a dramatic decline primarily because of the severe drop of its main prey, the European wild rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus. To reverse this situation, a food supplementation programme has been implemented in Do˜nana, south-west Spain, since 2002. In this study, we assess the utility of providing artificial food to reduce home-range (HR) size, and to increase productivity, survival and recruitment in a scenario of low lynx density, as compared with reference data from the same population in the absence of extra food. Food supplementation produced a significant contraction of core areas, but not of complete lynx HRs. We did not detect any significant change in productivity or dispersal rates, but supplementation could have helped transient adult lynx to settle down. The positive effects of food supplementation may have been partly countered by factors such as inbreeding, Allee effects and disease outbreaks, whose effects may have been exacerbated in this small lynx population. Food supplementation, however, proved useful to retain individuals, to keep range sizes within their normal range of values, thus maintaining spatial organization, and to allow lynx reproduction and kitten survival in areas with very low prey density. Therefore, we recommend keeping an extensive and intensive supplementary feeding programme until the density of wild rabbits will enable the viability of this endangered lynx population.

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Effects of Food Abundance on Individuals and Populations of the Rock Mouse (Peromyscus difficilis)

Cited by 28 publications

References 36 publications

Diet of some species of Neotropical small mammals

Diet of some species of Neotropical small mammals

Gender differences in the inhibitory effects of a reduction in ambient temperature and a reduction in food quantity on reproduction in the Southern African rodent, Rhabdomys pumilio

Effects of food supplementation on home‐range size, reproductive success, productivity and recruitment in a small population of Iberian lynx

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