Pilferage risk and selective pilfering of scatterhoarded food in Auburn, Alabama, United States

Abstract

Abstract Animals that experience a food-scarce season can supplement their diet by scatterhoarding, or burying food around their home range, and then retrieving and consuming those food items at a later date. Theft, or pilferage, is considered the greatest risk to stored food; yet little is known about the pilferage risk of different types of seeds. We investigated the long-term relative pilferage risk of 793 artificially scatterhoarded seeds (Mockernut Hickory, Carya tomentosa (Lam. Ex Poir.) Nutt.; American Beech, Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.; White Oak, Quercus alba L.; Water Oak, Quercus nigra L.) buried in Alabama from October 2020 to February 2021 and exposed to hoarding populations of eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis Gmelin, 1788) and eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus (L., 1758)). We found evidence that animals can selectively pilfer whole, dormant seeds and whole seeds were pilfered more rapidly than those with excised embryos. Whole Water Oak acorns were more likely to be pilfered than all other seed types. All seeds had a combined pilferage risk of 0.98 over 182 days, and the risks for individual seed types were all greater than 0.97. Our findings indicate the importance of pilferage reduction strategies documented in hoarding species and may indicate an advantage to having a diverse supply of hoarded foods that include lower-value seeds with lower pilferage risk.