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Immediate or lagged responses of a red squirrel population to pulsed resources

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Abstract

According to producer–consumer models, consumers should follow pulsed resources with a time lag. This view has been challenged by studies demonstrating that individuals may anticipate future resource pulses by increasing reproduction just before the pulse. We studied population fluctuations and reproduction in European red squirrels, Sciurus vulgaris, in relation to seed masting of the main food resource (the Norway spruce) in boreal coniferous forests between 1979 and 2013. Red squirrels are pre-dispersal seed predators, and previous studies have shown that they can anticipate the coming seed mast. We did not find any indication that anticipation of masting (year t ) increased red squirrel reproduction in the preceding spring to early summer. Instead, the reproductive output of the squirrels was highest in the spring following the mast, indicating that the population had to be at its largest size in the autumn after the mast (year t+1), when lots of subadults were around. However, we surmised, based on snow tracks and squirrel nest data, that the population crashed during the following winter (year t+1). These data reflected the adult population during winter, which peaked at the same time as the resource pulse. We can therefore conclude that the time lag between the resource pulse and the attainment of the peak number of squirrels was less than one year, and that the resource crash affected more juveniles and subadults than adults. The population increase overlapped with the occurrence of masting, but there was also a lagged response, supporting the classical view of producer–consumer models.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all of the field workers, particularly Harri Hakkarainen, Mikko Hast, Mikko Hänninen, Timo Hyrsky, Vesa Koivunen, Jorma Nurmi, and Reijo Passinen, who assisted with data gathering in the Kauhava study area, and all volunteers that assisted in the wildlife triangle scheme of the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute. Jon E. Brommer and Eric Le Tortorec provided valuable comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Alexandre Villers helped with habitat data. The study was financially supported by the Academy of Finland (grant numbers 250709 to E. K. and 259562 to V. S.).

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  1. Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland

    Vesa Selonen, Rauno Varjonen & Erkki Korpimäki

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  1. Vesa Selonen
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  2. Rauno Varjonen
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  3. Erkki Korpimäki
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Correspondence to Vesa Selonen.

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Communicated by Anders Angerbjörn.

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Selonen, V., Varjonen, R. & Korpimäki, E. Immediate or lagged responses of a red squirrel population to pulsed resources. Oecologia 177, 401–411 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3148-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3148-7

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