The Interactions Among Plant Seeds, Rodents, And Insects In Mt. Taihangshan Area

Food hoarding is a basic behavior of rodents, and has received a great attention of researchers. These studies focus on the following: rodent’s dispersal and handling to seeds and it’s effect on seed fate; The relationship among seed hoarders; The interactions between seed hoarders and their predators; The influence of the insect on seed fate; The effect of the seed characteristics on rodents’ food hoarding behavior etc. However, the previous studies concentrated on the influence of rodent on the plant seeds, and there were few studies on the regulation of the plant to the seed predators. In this study, by study how the insects and rodents to feed and transport the acorns, we survey the way of rodents to eat and handle acorns, and how insect infect acorns, and how plant regulate the hoarding of rodents and insects, and finally discuss the interaction of rodent–acorns–insect etc. This study was conducted in the Yugong area of Taihangshan mountain area from2007to2013, and our result show:(1) Based on a long term investigation, we displayed that the seed dispersal pattern and dispersal distance by rodent is significantly influenced by habitat and annual variation;(2)6local rodent species played a different role on seed dispersal, and Cricetulus triton is the sheer seed consumer, however, Eutamias sibiricus, Niviventer confucianus, Apodemus peninsulae and A. agrarius are the seed dispersers, and we firstly found that Niviventer confucianus mainly scatter hoard acorns;(3) The feeding pattern of rodents to acorns can be divided into5types. We proved that rodent could partially consume acorns as well as buried it, and30%-40%acorns were partially fed with survival embryo. We firstly found the cache behavior after hull-removal by small rodents, and we also display the radicle-excision and hoarding behavior to germinated acorns. By the enclosure test, we demonstrated that the five rodent species (S. davidianus, E. sibiricus, C. triton, N. confucianus, A. peninsulae and A. agrarius) all have the behavior of partial consumption to acorns, but only N. confucianus and A. peninsulae showed the hoarding behavior to acorn leftover, and only C. triton and N. confucianus have the epicarp-removal behavior to acorns, and all species showed the radicle-excision behavior;(4) We firstly describe the5feeding formations of insects to acorns, and84.27%acorns were consumed partially, and tend to eat the seeds from endosperm, and63.30%infected acorns have the health embryo to germinate;(5) Our study proved that acorns take different strategies to escape the rodents’ predation in different period of the seed development and germination, and there are five types of strategies totally: the fluctuations of seed production, germination rapidly, the germination of the leftover, the repeated germination of radicle-excision-acorn and the regermination of the excised root; Acorns decrease the infection from the insect by three strategies, including the fluctuation of the seed production, protection from nutritional cotyledon and the rodent’s feeding on insects.In a word, by our research, we displayed clearly the feeding feature of insects and rodents to acorns and the survival strategies of acorns to rodents’ and insects’ predation, and we discussed the interaction among plant, rodents and insects. Seeds can provide food for rodents and insects; in the meanwhile, they also evolved some strategies to avoid consumers’ feeding. Rodent can disperse seed to a suitable site though they can consume a large number of seeds. Rodents prey on insects not only increases their food supply but also control insects’ overpopulation.