Abstract
dent habitation in the area and nesting litter mixed with the cached seed, none were observed actually entering the tree stand. It appeared the rodents had been very discriminate. The stored seed was large and good quality. Bitterbrush seed production in 1963 was so much heavier than in previous years the Inyo National Forest felt it warranted an intensive effort at seed collection. This observation certainly points out the importance of rodents in bitterbrush ecology. Research by Hormay1 has pointed out the importance of rodents in caching bitterbrush seeds in the ground. Widespread observations and measurements indicate that most of the plants in bitterbrush stands in California become established from seeds cached by rodents. He found the seeds cached 0.25 to 1.5 inches below the soil surface and the seedlings from these varied in number from 2 to 100, although in one case 139 were found. Hormay did not actually observe caching by rodents, but he suspected that chipmunks and golden mantled ground squirrels did most of it, the same rodents that we believe cached the seeds in the hollow aspen tree.
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