[Effects of Pinus armandii seed size on rodents caching behavior and it's spatio-temporal variations]

Pinus armandii, a native pine species, has large (about 300 mg), wingless seeds, and distributes from central to western China at an altitude of 1000-3300 m. To determine how the seed size affects rodents caching behavior, tagged seed releasing and tracking experiments were conducted at 3 sites in Northwest Yunnan province in 2006 and 2007. Our data indicated that for all sites and both years, compared with the smaller seeds, the proportions of cached large seeds were significantly higher, whereas the consumed ones were significantly lower. Meanwhile, the mean and maximum values of caching distances were also significantly increased in large seeds. Seed fate was different between the two years and within the three sites as there have different rodent community compositions.