On Wednesday afternoon we will initiate our second and final research project for Plant-Animal Interactions

(1) Our campus squirrel population provides ample opportunities to explore squirrel feeding preferences or scatterhoarding behaviors. Many of the findings summarized in a series of papers by Steele and Smallwood (e.g., “What are squirrels hiding? Natural History 10: 40-44. 1994. and other findings reported in their articles) offer challenging field experiment ideas. For example, given that species of red oaks are high in tannin content while species of white oaks are low in tannins, artificial acorns can be created with varying tannin levels to test squirrel preferences. Alternatively, one could contrast squirrel preference for even higher quality foods such as walnut or hickory fruits against oak acorns. While acorns are easy to open, hickory nuts require more time to open. There are numerous "efficiency of foraging” questions that could be addressed with this system. Finally, the presence or absence of weevils in acorns presents another potential foraging experiment. For example, how do squirrels handle infested vs. uninfested fruits in white vs. red oaks?