scholarly journals Food Habits of Ermine, Mustela erminea, in a Forested Landscape

2003 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Edwards ◽  
Graham J. Forbes

Most research pertaining to the diet of North American weasels has been conducted in agricultural areas and may not be representative of diets in forested regions. Ermine carcasses (N = 155) collected from trappers during a two-week harvest (16-30 November 1996) in forested New Brunswick were analyzed for food habits. The contents of 81 stomachs and 98 gastrointestinal tracts (N = 179) were considered as separate eating events and used in the calculation of the percent frequency of occurrence. Results suggest that soricids (28.0%), arvicolines (24.6%), and cricetines (17.3%) comprised two-thirds of their autumn diet. At a species or genus level, the Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) (17.3%) and shrews (Sorex spp.) (28.0%) were shown to have the highest percent occurrence. Squirrels, including the Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) and the Eastern Chipmunk (Tamius striatus), comprised 11.2% of the Ermine’s diet; a value higher than has previously been reported.

1986 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis LaPierre

Between August 15th and September 15th 1979, 1980 and 1981, 77 and 74 red squirrels, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, were captured within the sprayed and unsprayed coniferous forest of southeastern New Brunswick. Following live capture, the squirrels were sacrificed, weighed and the reproductive tracts were removed and preserved in a 10% formalin solution.Counts of placental scars and corpora lutea of squirrels that inhabited the sprayed forest had a mean placental scar count of 3.8 and a mean corpora lutea count of 4.2. Squirrels from the unsprayed coniferous forest had a mean placental count of 3.6 and a corpora lutea count of 3.9. Statistical analyses, using the student's T-test with a probability level of 0.05, revealed no significant differences in reproductive success of the two groups of squirrels.


1982 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 865-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. D. Racey ◽  
D. L. Euler

Changes in small mammal abundance and habitat caused by shoreline cottage development in central Ontario were studied in the summers of 1978 and 1979. This development significantly altered the vegetation composition and structure in the vicinity of cottages. These alterations, in turn, had an impact on small mammal abundance. These animals were classified in three response categories: tolerant (existing, at some level, regardless of degree of development), intolerant (extirpated at high levels of development), and indifferent to development. Tolerant species were the eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus), short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda), and deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus); intolerant species were the masked shrew (Sorex cinereus), red-backed vole (Clethrionomys gapperi), and woodland jumping mouse (Napeozapus insignis). The red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) was indifferent to development. Small mammal diversity was highest on mixed shorelines at moderate levels of development. Species diversity appeared to respond positively to vegetative composition, edge effect, and irregularity of habitat. These characteristics were all dependent on the level of cottage development.


1989 ◽  
Vol 121 (9) ◽  
pp. 827-828
Author(s):  
Daniel T. Jennings ◽  
Hewlette S. Crawford

Predators of the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumijerana (Clem.), include both invertebrates and vertebrates (Jennings and Crawford 1985). Birds are the best known and most extensively studied vertebrate predators, but because of their arboreal and omnivorous feeding habits, the deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus (Bangs), and the red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (Bangs), often are implicated as potential predators of budworm larvae and pupae (Morris et al. 1958; Morris 1963; Otvos 1981; Welsh 1983). In laboratory feeding trials, W.F. Chesire estimated that red squirrels had a mean food capacity of 600–700 mature larvae or pupae of the spruce budworm per day (Morris 1963). R.T. Mitchell examined the stomach contents of 25 red squirrels collected during a major spruce budworm outbreak in northern Maine (Dowden et al. 1953); he found that spruce budworms made up 51% of their total food. On the basis of these results, Dowden et al. (1953) estimated that a red squirrel could eat 400–500 larvae per day.


1997 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Setterington ◽  
Daniel M. Keppie

Relationships between external cone characteristics (length, width, wet and dry mass), cone quality (total seed mass as a proportion of cone mass, total number of seeds per cone, total seed mass per cone), and number of cones in caches were evaluated for caches of jack pine (Pinus banksiana) cones belonging to red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in two plantations in southern New Brunswick. Cone length and mass were good predictors of the total number of seeds per cone and total seed mass per cone. Length accounted for a small proportion of the variance of total seed mass as a proportion of cone mass. There was no relationship between the number of seeds or total seed mass per cone and the number of cones per cache.


2017 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
pp. 281 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hamer

Bears (Ursus spp.) in North America eat the seeds of several pines (Pinus spp.), including Limber Pine (P. flexilis E. James). Information on use of Limber Pine in Canada is limited to a report of three bear scats containing pine seeds found in Limber Pine stands of southwestern Alberta. After my preliminary fieldwork in Banff National Park revealed that bears were eating seeds of Limber Pine there, I conducted a field study in 2014–2015 to assess this use. Because bears typically obtain pine seeds from cone caches (middens) made by Red Squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), I described the abundance, habitat characteristics, and use by bears of Red Squirrel middens in and adjacent to Limber Pine stands at six study sites. On Bow River escarpments, I found abundant Limber Pines (basal area 1–9 m2/ha) and middens (0.8 middens/ha, standard deviation [SD] 0.2). Of 24 middens, 13 (54%) had been excavated by bears, and three bear scats composed of pine seeds were found beside middens. Although Limber Pines occurred on steep, xeric, windswept slopes (mean 28°, SD 3), middens occurred on moderate slopes (mean 12°, SD 3) in escarpment gullies and at the toe of slopes in forests of other species, particularly Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). At the five other study sites, I found little or no use of Limber Pine seeds by bears, suggesting that Limber Pine habitat may be little used by bears unless the pines are interspersed with (non-Limber Pine) habitat with greater forest cover and less-steep slopes where squirrels establish middens. These observations provide managers with an additional piece of information regarding potential drivers of bear activity in the human-dominated landscape of Banff National Park’s lower Bow Valley.


1988 ◽  
Vol 120 (12) ◽  
pp. 1113-1121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y.H. Prévost ◽  
J.E. Laing ◽  
V.F. Haavisto

AbstractThe seasonal damage to female reproductive structures (buds, flowers, and cones) of black spruce, Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P., was assessed during 1983 and 1984. Nineteen insects (five Orders) and the red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (Erxleben), were found feeding on these reproductive structures. Collectively, these organisms damaged 88.9 and 53.5% of the cones in 1983 and 1984, respectively. In the 2 years, Lepidoptera damaged 61.8% of the cones in 1983 and 44.4% of the cones in 1984. The spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Clem.), and the spruce coneworm, Dioryctria reniculelloides Mut. and Mun., were the most important pests. Cones damaged by Lepidoptera could be classed into three categories: (a) severe, yielding no seeds; (b) moderate, yielding 22.3 seeds per cone; and (c) light, yielding 37.5 seeds per cone. Undamaged cones yielded on average 39.9 seeds per cone. Red squirrels removed 18.8% of the cones in 1983 and none in 1984. The spruce cone axis midge, Dasineura rachiphaga Tripp, and the spruce cone maggot, Lasiomma anthracinum (Czerny), caused minor damage in both years. Feeding by spruce cone axis midge did not reduce cone growth significantly or the number of viable seeds per cone, but feeding by the spruce cone maggot did. During both years new damage by insects to the female reproductive structures of the experimental trees was not observed after mid-July. In 1983 damage by red squirrels occurred from early to late September. In 1984 damage to cones on trees treated with dimethoate was 15.6% compared with 53.5% for untreated trees, without an increase in the number of aborted cones.


1972 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Milburn ◽  
Nancy Bell

It was hypothesized that people scoring high on a value or need such as evaluative dependence (measured by the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, M-C SD) would be more sensitive to words relevant to this need than would low scoring Ss and thus would tend to overestimate the frequency of occurrence of the need-relevant words. Words chosen for frequency ratings varied on a good-bad dimension pertaining to human characteristics or behaviors, and appropriate word classification was determined by the evaluative ratings of an initial sample of Ss. Words within each category were also matched for actual frequency of occurrence according to Thorndike-Lorge counts. The results did not support the hypothesis since high and low M-C SD scorers did not differ in their frequency ratings. The major finding, replicated in a second experiment, was that all Ss rated evaluative words as occurring more frequently than neutral words, even though the actual frequency of occurrence of the word types was the same.


1980 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1090-1099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Ferron

A detailed analysis of the behavioural development of the red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) from birth to weaning is presented. For each behaviour pattern, the earliest and latest ages of emergence in a series of 14 young (from three litters) were registered and a mean was calculated. A review of the principal events of physical development is given first. The ontogeny of behaviour is then considered under five headings: locomotion, alertness and exploration, feeding, comfort, and social interactions. In the discussion, a general analysis of the development of behaviour with regard to the different periods of ontogeny (neonatal period, transition period, and socialization period) and the two leading events of the early life of the red squirrel (emergence from the nest and weaning) is given. It appears that the young are equipped with a minimum of behaviour patterns during the period of nest confinement and that close to emergence, a series of new behaviours come into effect with the exception of locomotion, which evolves gradually and regularly during ontogeny.


1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 309-316
Author(s):  
Peter Mason

[First paragraph]Columbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe's Prophetic Rhetoric As Conquering Ideology. DJELAL KADIR. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. xiv + 256 pp. (Cloth US$ 30.00)The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus. VALERIE IJ. FLINT. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. xx + 233 pp. (Cloth US$ 30.00)Terra Cognita: The Mental Discovery of America. EVIATAR ZERUBAVEL. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992. xiv + 164 pp. (Cloth US$ 17.00)Imagining the World: Mythical Belief versus Reality in Global Encounters. O.R. DATHORNE. Westport CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1994. x + 241 pp. (Cloth US$ 49.95)Three of the books under review were published in 1992, and each of them approaches the significance of Columbus's landfall 500 years earlier in a different way. What they have in common, as their titles and subtitles indicate, is that they all purport to be about a mental framework - an "imaginative landscape" (Flint), a "mental discovery" (Zerubavel), "Europe's prophetic rhetoric as conquering ideology" (Kadir), or "imagining the world" (Dathorne).The 1992 commemoration led to a flood of books on Columbus and on the discovery of America. Now that the commotion has died down, it becomes easier to separate the wheat from the chaff, to distinguish between occasional publications hastily put together for the occasion, and solid contributions to scholarship which, while never immune to their own times, may be expected to retain a value that is more than temporary.


2012 ◽  
Vol 90 (9) ◽  
pp. 1191-1200 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.M. Kiesow ◽  
E.M. Monroe ◽  
H.B. Britten

We selected two isolated mammalian populations, the Black Hills northern flying squirrel ( Glaucomys sabrinus (Shaw, 1801)) and red squirrel ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (Erxleben, 1777)), to elucidate their genetic structure. We trapped both squirrels from 2005 to 2007, in three regions of the Black Hills, differing in geology and vegetation, to collect ear samples for genetic analyses. Microsatellite loci (northern flying (9) and red squirrel (13)) were used to examine genetic structure. Data analyses estimated genetic variability, substructure, and gene flow. Northern flying and red squirrel populations have allelic diversity and observed heterozygosity similar to other isolated populations. Each species shows weak substructure from STRUCTURE and GENELAND analyses, suggesting squirrel movements may be inhibited by topography or unsuitable habitat. Recent gene flow estimates from BAYESASS indicate that both species experience some within population gene flow and red squirrels may be more structured than northern flying squirrels because of lower migration rates. Concordant patterns of genetic structure in northern flying and red squirrels indicate that other species’ movements in the Black Hills may be affected by topography and habitat. Because their habitat is isolated in the Black Hills, management practices and conservation measures are recommended to promote viability and survival of each species.


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