Greetings Ecologgers,
I have a student in my lab beginning a study of the role of the Western
Scrub Jay seed caching in the dispersal and regeneration of Oak species
in the Sierra Nevada foothills oak woodlands. We plan to measure rates
of acorn caching and retrieval by the jays using feeders, and also
monitor the fates of cached seeds to measure their survival and
germination. We will be radio-tracking some of the birds to track their
foraging behaviors and ranging patterns, and also to follow them to
caches, but this will be limited by our small budget. I am looking for
ways to track the acorns themselves directly, and wondering if RFID /
PIT tags is one way to go. I came across one paper (see below) where
they used simple aluminium tags to mark acorns while monitoring
dispersal/predation by rodents. A google search for RFID yields a ton of
links for all kinds of commercial applications, and some for
wild/domestic animal tagging, but not much for tracking seeds. Has
anyone on this forum conducted/come across such a study where RFID tags
or other kinds of tags might have been used to track seeds? If so, I'd
like to find out more about the success/pitfalls of the techniques, as
well as places to actually purchase the tags and readers.
Thank you.
Madhu
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Madhusudan Katti
Assistant Professor of Vertebrate Biology
Department of Biology, M/S SB 73
California State University, Fresno
Fresno, CA 93740-8034
+1.559.278.2460
[email protected]
http://www.reconciliationecology.org/
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