Early germination of white oaks is widely viewed as an evolutionary strategy to escape rodent predation; yet, the mechanism by which this is accomplished is poorly understood. We report that chestnut oak Quercus montana (CO) and white oak Q. alba (WO) (from North America), and oriental cork oak Q. variabilis (OO) and Mongolian oak Q. mongolica (MO) (from Asia) can escape predation and successfu...

We investigated arboreal removal and insect damage to acorns in an undisturbed oak woodland in central coastal California. Arboreal seed removal was determined for four to eight individual Quercus lobata trees over a period of 14 years by comparing visual estimates of the acorn crop with the number of acorns caught in seed traps. Insect damage was assessed by sampling acorns from trees of all t...

The size of acorns produced by several species of eastern North American oaks decreases with latitude. We investigated three hypotheses for this pattern in the bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa Michx.) using samples collected over 2 years throughout the species’ range. We found strong support for the hypothesis that abiotic factors, including both temperature and rainfall, constrain acorn size. There...

(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 spec...

At the time of initial contact with European colonists, most California native groups used stone mortars and pestles for milling acorns into flour. The prevalence of these implements in aboriginal California generally reflects the considerable significance of acorns to the aboriginal diet. Mortars and pestles have a long prehistory in California, and as Basgall (1987) has pointed out, their ini...

A report on recent results and outstanding problems concerning additive chow groups. “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”

Open-pollinated white oak (Quercus alba L.) acorns were collected and stored at 4 °C in November 2004. Three days before sowing in early December, we treated germinating acorns in fi ve ways: no surgery (C); one half of the radicle cut off (HR); whole radicle cut off (WR); one cotyledonary petiole severed (OP); and both cotyledonary petioles severed, which resulted in no embryo axis (NE). Seedl...

In eastern U.S. oak forests, defoliation by gypsy moths and the risk of Lyme disease are determined by interactions among acorns, white-footed mice, moths, deer, and ticks. Experimental removal of mice, which eat moth pupae, demonstrated that moth outbreaks are caused by reductions in mouse density that occur when there are no acorns. Experimental acorn addition increased mouse density. Acorn a...