Extracting information about freeze-thaw events from historical documents requires knowledge of the initial food-specific freezing point [103]. Initial freezing points are directly related to the concentration of solutes in a food and its water content [130] and are known for a variety of foods. Many of these estimates could be used as a substitute for food cached by wildlife. However, the existing literature lacks estimates of the initial freezing points of arthropods, which are relevant for a number of species storing food that regularly stores these taxa. Once the initial freezing points have been determined by experiments or estimated from the literature, the number of freeze-thaw events can be extracted from historical weather records by determining the point at which the temperature falls below and then rises above the original freezing point. Balda RP, Kamil AC The ecology and evolution of spatial memory in crows in the southwestern United States: the amazing pinyon jay. In: Balda RP, Pepperberg IM, Kamil AC, Redaktion. Animal cognition in nature: the convergence of psychology and biology in the laboratory and the field. 1998. S. 29-64. In the context of the 2-step temporal model (equations 2 to 4), we look at 3 ways in which food consumption affects the physical form (F) of the animal. These reflect 3 different fitness goals and provide 3 different frameworks to assess the optimal conditions for the development of caching.

P. the strobiform is found in a variety of habitat types, in part because of its average colour tolerance (Jones 1974; Barton, 1993) and fire resistance when ripe (Dieterich, 1983). It is associated with a variety of environmental factors, including altitude (Brady and Bonham), moisture availability (Niering and Lowe, 1984), temperature (Laughlin et al., 2011), and appearance (Park, 2001). In addition, in Mexico, P. strobiformis is associated with the availability of topographically protected sites (Park, 2001). Although quite unusual, it is locally important in the context of complex and mixed forests (Jones 1974). While the potential loss of P. strobiforms may have less profound effects on population structure and plant community composition due to white bladder rust, firefighting or climate change than the loss of Rocky Mountain five-needle white pine species such as P. albicaulis or P. flexilis (Schoettle, 2004; Harvey et al., 2008), the consequences could nevertheless be serious. Clark`s Nutcracker and endangered thick-billed parrot depend on P.

strobiformis in some areas of the pine range (Benkman et al. 1984; Lanning and Shiflett, 1983; Samano and Tomback, 2003). In addition, the recent discovery of seed caching behavior in small rodents (Tomback et al. 2011) raises the possibility that the tree could serve as an important food source for other animal species, which in turn may play a role in seed dispersal. In addition, the relatives P. ayacahuite and P. chiapensis in Mexican and Central American forests otherwise dominated by deciduous species, unique influences on soils and nutrient cycles (Galindo-Jaimes et al., 2002; del Castillo et al., 2009), suggesting that P. strobiformis may have an equally important influence on soil factors in habitats where it is the main coniferous species.

Our three main objectives in this article are (1) to place the potential impact of climate change on the quality of cached foods in a broader context of the costs and benefits of caching, (2) to introduce a framework based on the variation in caching behavior between species and in the types of foods they store to assess their vulnerability to climate change, and (3) assess their vulnerability to climate change, and (3) information in the areas of Using Food Science and Plant Biology to identify environmental conditions that could contribute to the degradation or preservation of cached food in nature. We expect these new perspectives to stimulate future research on a wider range of cached species and improve our ability to understand the potential impacts of climate change on this subset of animals. Another possible relaxation of the hypothesis would be to “not let all cached foods be consumed in period 2”. In the context of a deterministic model, we do not believe it will change the main outcomes of our model. In a deterministic world, “hiding and not eating later” is a worse strategy than “eating right away” because the animal spends time tending to the food and doesn`t get energy out of it in the future (as opposed to eating immediately, resulting in an immediate gain in energy). On the other hand, in a scenario of unpredictable resource abundance (especially in period 2), “hiding and not eating” may be better than eating immediately because the animal is not sure how much food it will have in period 2. In this case, it may be better to be conservative and possibly “waste” energy by hiding and not eating later than to be “risky” and not to hide at all and perhaps starve later. Most models of caching behavior to understand caching decisions have used stochastic dynamic programming (McNamara et al. 1990; Lucas and Walter, 1991; Brodin and Clark, 1997; Pravosudov and Lucas, 2001). These models effectively determine how an optimal collector manages state dependencies, current and future food consumption, and the trade-offs between theft and hunger and hunger.

Our model complements them. It is simpler and comes down to a 2-step non-stochastic dynamic model. It provides a more integrated and general analysis of how extrinsic factors such as handling time and food perishability affect caching decisions in a few environmental scenarios, such as predation risk and long-term caching. It sits between the dynamic caching models and the Pulliam prey selection model (Pulliam 1974) and aims to be a simple and very robust approach to identifying, separating and testing the selective “patterns” of food caching.