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My graduate students and I study plant-animal interactions. We are currently conducting research on the dispersal of pine (Jeffrey, sugar, ponderosa, pinon, and others) and shrub (manzanita, peony) seeds by rodents and jays in the Sierra Nevada of western Nevada. These animals, primarily yellow pine chipmunks, white-tailed antelope ground squirrels, and deer mice cache seeds in shallow, scattered sites in the soil. Seeds that are not retrieved by spring germinate, resulting in plant establishment. The relationships between these plants and animals are mutualistic; the rodents receive a nutritious food supply and the plants are disseminated throughout the region. These plant-animal interactions are excellent model systems for studying the process of plant dispersal by food-hoarding animals. We are also studying how rodents use spatial memory and olfaction to recover cached food.Food Hoarding Behavior in AnimalsFood hoarding behavior is ubiquitous in mammals and birds, and is often closely tied to winter survival in temperate climates. With many animal species competing for limited food, an array of questions can be asked about how animals maximize both the quantity and quality of stored food. We use both field and laboratory studies to examine foraging and hoarding behavior, as well as interactions between species for food resources. Representative Publications : Vander Wall, S. B., J. S. Briggs, S. H. Jenkins, K. M. Kuhn, T. C. Thayer, and M. J. Beck. 2006. Do food-hoarding animals have a cache recovery advantage? Determining recovery of stored food. Animal Behaviour 72:189-197. PDF Thayer, T. C., and S. B. Vander Wall. 2005. Interactions between Steller's jays and yellow pine chipmunks over scatter-hoarded sugar pine seeds. Journal of Animal Ecology 74:365-374. PDF Vander Wall, S. B., and S. H. Jenkins. 2003. Reciprocal pilferage and the evolution of food-hoarding behavior. Behavioral Ecology 14:656-667. PDF Seed Dispersal by Scatter-hoarding RodentsMany species of plants rely on scatter-hoarding mutualists for the dispersal of propagules. Plants take advantage of the compulsory nature of scatter-hoarding by animals to disperse seeds to safe sites suitable for germination. This requirement of many species of plant has put strong selection pressure on seed traits and phenology. We use novel methods to follow the fate of seeds handled by animals coupled with field and laboratory germination experiments to look at the relationship between plants and their dispersers. Representative Publications: Vander Wall, S. B. 2008. On the relative contributions of wind vs. animals to seed dispersal of four Sierra Nevada pines. Ecology 89:1837-1849. PDF Vander Wall, S. B., K. M. Kuhn, and M. J. Beck. 2005. Seed removal, seed predation, and secondary dispersal. Ecology 86:801-806. PDF Vander Wall, S. B., and W. S. Longland. 2004. Diplochory: are two seed dispersers better than one? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 19:155-161. PDF Vander Wall, S. B. 2002. Masting in animal-dispersed pines facilitates seed dispersal. Ecology 83:3508-3516. PDF
Complete Publication List: 1. Balda, R. P., and S.
B. Vander Wall.
1973.
Passeriformes. In McGraw-Hill
Yearbook of Science and Technology, pp. 322-325. McGraw-Hill
Book Company,
2. Bock, W. J., R. P.
Balda, and S. B. Vander Wall. 1973. Morphology of the sublingual pouch and
tongue musculature in
3. Vander Wall, S. B.,
and R. P. Balda. 1977. Coadaptations of the
4. Vander Wall, S. B.,
and K. Sullivan. 1978. Olive warbler in the San Francisco
Mountains,
5. Lanner, R. M., and S.
B. Vander Wall.
1980.
Dispersal of limber pine seeds by
6. Vander Wall, S. B.,
S. W. Hoffman, and W. K. Potts. 1981. Emigration behavior of
7. Vander Wall, S. B., and R. P. Balda. 1981. Ecology and evolution of food-storage behavior in conifer-seed-caching corvids. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 56:217-242.
8. Vander Wall, S.
B.
1982.
An experimental analysis of cache recovery in
9. Vander Wall, S. B., and R. P. Balda. 1983. Remembrance of seeds stashed. Natural History 92(9):60-65.
10. Vander Wall, S. B., and H. E.
Hutchins.
1983.
Dependence of
11. Steele, B. B., C. V. Grant, and
S. B. Vander Wall. 1983. Importance of avian populations for
land management and reclamation of disturbed lands. In
Proceedings of the Thorne Ecological Symposium, pp.
84-90.
12. Vander Wall, S. B., and J. A.
MacMahon.
1983.
Avian distribution patterns along a
13. Parmenter, R. R., J. A. MacMahon, and S. B. Vander Wall. 1983. The measurement of granivory by desert rodents, birds, and ants: A comparison of an energetics approach and a seed-dish technique. Journal of Arid Environments 7:75-92.
14. Steele, B. B., and S. B. Vander
Wall.
1985.
Aquatic birds of
15. Vander Wall, S. B. 1986. Gift of the mice people. Natural History 95(3):22-28.
16. Vander Wall, S. B., and K. G.
Smith.
1987.
Cache-protecting behavior of food-hoarding animals. In Foraging
Behavior, edited by Kamil, A. C., J. R. Krebs, and R. H. Pulliam, pp.
611-644. Plenum Press,
17.
Vander Wall, S. B. 1988. Foraging of
18. Vander Wall, S. B. 1990. Food hoarding in
animals.
19. Vander Wall, S. B. 1991. Mechanisms of cache recovery by yellow pine chipmunks. Animal Behaviour 41:851-863. PDF
20. Vander Wall, S. B. 1992. The role of animals in dispersing a "wind-dispersed" pines. Ecology 73:614-621.
21. Vander Wall, S. B. 1992. Establishment of Jeffrey pine seedlings from animal caches. Western Journal of Applied Forestry 7:14-20.
22. Vander Wall, S. B. 1993. A model of caching depth: Implications for scatter hoarders and plant dispersal. American Naturalist 141:217-232.
23. Vander Wall, S. B. 1993. Seed water
content and the vulnerability of buried seeds to foraging rodents. American
24. Vander Wall, S. B. 1993. Salivary water loss to seeds by yellow pine chipmunks and Merriam's kangaroo rats. Ecology 74:1307-1312.
25. Vander Wall, S. B. 1993. Cache site selection by chipmunks (Tamias spp.) and its influence on the effectiveness of seed dispersal in Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi). Oecologia 96:246-252.
26. Vander Wall, S. B. 1994. Removal of wind-dispersed pine seeds by ground-foraging vertebrates. Oikos 69:125-132. PDF
27. Vander Wall, S. B. 1994. Seed fate pathways of antelope bitterbrush: Dispersal by seed-caching yellow pine chipmunks. Ecology 75:1911-1926.
28. Vander Wall, S. B. 1995. Influence of substrate water on the ability of rodents to find buried seeds. Journal of Mammalogy 76:851-856. PDF
29. Vander Wall, S. B. 1995. Salivary
water loss during seed husking in deer mice and
30. Vander Wall, S. B. 1995. Dynamics of yellow pine chipmunk (Tamias amoenus) seed caches: Underground traffic in bitterbrush seeds. Ecoscience 2:261-266. PDF
31. Vander Wall, S. B. 1995. Sequential
patterns of scatter hoarding in yellow pine chipmunks. American
32. Vander Wall, S. B. 1995. The effects of seed value on the caching behavior of yellow pine chipmunks. Oikos 74:533-537. PDF
33. Vander Wall, S. B., and E. Peterson. 1996. Associative learning and the use of cache markers by yellow pine chipmunks (Tamias amoenus). Southwestern Naturalist 41:88-90.
34. Vander Wall, S. B. 1997. Dispersal of singleleaf piñon pine (Pinus monophylla) by seed-caching rodents. Journal of Mammalogy 78:181-191. PDF
35. Vander Wall, S. B. 1998. Foraging
success of granivorous rodents: effects of variation in seed and soil
water content on olfaction. Ecology
79:233-241. PDF
36. Vander Wall, S. B., W. Longland,
S. Pyare., and J. A. Veech. 1998. Cheek pouch capacities and loading
rates of heteromyid rodents. Oecologia
113:21-28. PDF
37. Vander Wall, S. B., and J. W. Joyner. 1998. Recaching of Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi) seeds by yellow pine chipmunks (Tamias amoenus): potential effects on plant reproductive success. Canadian Journal of Zoology 76:154-162.
38. Vander Wall, S. B., and J. W.
Joyner.
1998.
Secondary wind dispersal of winged pine seeds. American
39.
Chambers, J. C., E. W. Schupp, and S. B. Vander
Wall.
1998.
Seed dispersal and seedling establishment of piñon and juniper
species within the piñon-juniper woodland. In: Monsen, S. B., R. Stevens, R. J. Tausch, R.
Miller, and S. Goodrich. Proceedings: Ecology and
Management of Pinyon-juniper Communities within the Interior
West. September 15-18,
40.
Vander Wall, S. B., and W. Longland. 1998. Cheek pouch
capacities and loading rates of deer mice (Peromyscus
maniculatus).
41.
Chambers, J. C., S. B. Vander Wall, and E. W.
Schupp.
1999.
Seed and seedling ecology of piñon and juniper species in the pygmy
woodlands of western
42. Schupp, E. W., J. C. Chambers, S.
B. Vander Wall, J. M. Gomez, and M. Fuentes. 1999. Pinon and
juniper seed dispersal and seedling recruitment at woodland ecotones. Proceedings:
Shrubland Ecotones, August 12-14, 1998,
43. Vander Wall, S. B. 2000. The influence
of environmental conditions on cache recovery and cache pilferage by
yellow pine chipmunks (Tamias amoenus) and deer mice (Peromyscus
maniculatus). Behavioral Ecology 11:544-549. PDF
44. Vander Wall, S. B., T. C. Thayer, J. S. Hodge, M. J. Beck, J. K. Roth. 2001. Scatter-hoarding behavior of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus). Western North American Naturalist 61:109-113.
45. Forget, P.-M., and S. B. Vander Wall. 2001. Scatter-hoarding rodents and marsupials: convergent evolution on diverging continents. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16:65-67.
46. Vander Wall, S. B. 2001. The
evolutionary ecology of nut dispersal. Botanical Review
67: 74-117. PDF
47. Longland, W. S., S. H. Jenkins,
S. B. Vander Wall, J. A. Veech, and S. Pyare. 2001. Seedling
recruitment in Oryzopsis hymenoides: are desert granivores
mutualists or predators? Ecology
82:3131-3148. PDF
48. Vander Wall, S. B. 2002. Secondary
dispersal of Jeffrey pine seeds by rodent scatter hoarders: the roles of
pilfering, recaching, and a variable environment. Pages 193-208
In Levey, D. J.,
Silva, W. R., and M. Galetti. Seed Dispersal and Frugivory: Ecology, Evolution and
Conservation. CABI Publishing,
49. Vander Wall, S. B. 2002. Masting in pines alters the use of cached seeds by rodents and causes increased seed survival. Ecology 83:3508-3516. PDF
50. Vander Wall, S. B. 2003. Effect of
seed size of wind-dispersed pines (Pinus) on secondary seed dispersal and the
caching behavior of rodents. Oikos 82:25-34. PDF
51. Vander Wall, S. B., M. J. Beck,
J. S. Briggs, J. K. Roth, T. C. Thayer, J. L. Hollander, and J. M.
Armstrong.
2003.
Interspecific variation in the olfactory abilities of granivorous
rodents.
Journal of Mammalogy 84:159-168. PDF
52. Johnson, J. M., S. B. Vander Wall, and M. Borchert. 2003. A comparative analysis of seed and cone characteristics and seed-dispersal strategies of three pines in the subsection Sabinianae. Plant Ecology 168:69-84. PDF
53. Borchert, M., J. M. Johnson, D.
Schreiner and S. B. Vander Wall. 2003. Early postfire seed dispersal, seedling
establishment and seedling mortality of Pinus
coulteri
(D. Don) in central coastal
54. Vander Wall, S. B. 2003. How rodents
smell buried seeds: a model based on the behavior of pesticides in
soil.
Journal of Mammalogy. 84:1089-1099.
PDF
55. Vander Wall, S. B., and S. H.
Jenkins.
2003.
Reciprocal pilfering and the evolution of food-hoarding
behavior.
Behavioral Ecology 14:656-667. PDF
56. Hollander, J. L., and S. B.
Vander Wall.
2004.
Effectiveness of six species of rodents as dispersers of singleleaf
pinon pine (Pinus monophylla). Oecologia 138:57-65. PDF
57. Vander Wall, S. B., and W. S. Longland. 2004. Diplochory: are two seed dispersers better than one? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19:155-161. PDF
58. Briggs, J. S., and S. B. Vander
Wall.
2004.
Substrate type affects caching and pilferage of pine seeds by
chipmunks.
Behavioral Ecology 15:666-672. PDF
59. Forget, P.-M., J. Lambert, P.
Hulme, and S. B. Vander Wall. 2005. Seed fates:
predation, dispersal and seedling establishment. CABI
Publishing,
60. Vander Wall, S. B., P.-M. Forget,
J. Lambert, and P. Hulme. 2005. Seed fate pathways: filling the gap
between parent and offspring. Pages 1-8 In Forget, P.-M.,
J. Lambert, P. Hulme, and S. B. Vander Wall. Seed fates:
predation, dispersal and seedling establishment. CABI
Publishing,
61. Vander Wall, S. B., and W. S.
Longland. 2005.
Diplochory and the evolution of seed dispersal. Pages
297-314
In Forget, P.-M., J. Lambert, P. Hulme,
and S. B. Vander Wall. Seed fates: predation, dispersal and seedling
establishment. CABI Publishing,
62. Thayer, T. C., and S. B. Vander
Wall.
2005.
Interactions between Steller’s jays and yellow pine chipmunk over
scatter-hoarded sugar pine seeds. Journal of
Animal Ecology 74:365-374. PDF
63. Vander Wall, S. B., K. M. Kuhn, and M.
J. Beck.
2005.
Seed removal, seed predation, and secondary dispersal. Ecology
86:801-806. PDF
64. Vander Wall, S. B., E. C. H. Hager, and K. M. Kuhn. 2005. Pilfering of stored seeds and the relative costs of scatter hoarding versus larder hoarding in yellow pine chipmunks. Western North American Naturalist 65:248-257.
65. Balda, R. P., and S. B. Vander
Wall.
2005.
Cognition: Caching Behavior. Pages 252-255 In Encyclopedia of
Animal Behavior. 3 volumes, M. Bekoff
(ed.),
66. Roth, J. K., and S. B. Vander
Wall.
2005.
Dispersal and establishment of Sierra chinquapin (Castanopsis
sempervirens) by seed-caching rodents. Ecology
86:2428-2439. PDF
67. Vander Wall, S. B.,
K. M. Kuhn, and J. Gworek. 2005. Two phase seed dispersal: the link
between frugivorous birds and seed-caching rodents. Oecologia
145:282-287. PDF
68. Vander Wall, S. B.
(with contributions from 14 colleagues). 2005.
69. Vander Wall, S. B.,
M. I. Borchert, and J. Gworek. 2006. Secondary dispersal of bigcone
Douglas-fir (Pseudostuga macrocarpa) seeds in a fire-dominated
landscape.
Journal: Acta Oecologica 30:100-106. PDF
70. Vander Wall, S. B., J. S. Briggs, S. H. Jenkins, K. M. Kuhn, T. C. Thayer and M. J. Beck. 2006. Do food-hoarding animals have a recovery advantage? determining recovery of stored food. Animal Behaviour 72:189-197. PDF
71.
Vander Wall, S. B., T. Esque, D. Haines, M. Garnett, and B. A.
Waitman.
2006.
Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) seeds are dispersed by seed-caching
rodents. Ecoscience
13:539-543. PDF
72.
Gworek, J. R., S. B. Vander Wall, and P. F. Brussard. 2007. Changes in
biotic interactions and climate determine recruitment of Jeffrey pine
along an elevation gradient.
73. Richardson, T. W., and S. B. Vander Wall. 2007. Yellow pine chipmunks cannot climb quaking aspens: implications for avian nest site selection. Western North American Naturalist 67:251-257. PDF
74. Kuhn, K. M., and S.
B. Vander Wall.
2007.
Black bears (Ursus americanus) harvest Jeffrey pine (Pinus
jeffreyi) seeds from tree canopies. Western North
American Naturalist 67:384-388. PDF
75. Vander Wall, S.
B.
2008.
On the relative contributions of wind versus animals to seed
dispersal of four
76. Vander Wall, S. B., C. J. Downs, M. S. Enders, and B. A. Waitman. Do yellow-pine chipmunks prefer to recover their own caches? Western North American Naturalist 68:319-325. PDF
77. Kuhn, K. M., and S. B. Vander
Wall.
2008.
Linking summer foraging to winter survival in yellow pine chipmunks
(Tamias amoenus). Oecologia 157:349-360. PDF 78. Briggs,
J. S., S. B. Vander Wall, and S. H. Jenkins. 2009. Forest
rodents provide directed dispersal of Jeffrey pine seeds. Ecology 90:675-687. PDF 79.
Hollander, J. L., and S. B. Vander Wall. 2009. Dispersal
Syndromes in North American Ephedra. International
Journal of Plant Sciences 170:232-330. PDF
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