Lutra 58(1)_Lammertsma_book review_2015
Book review: Of mice and oaks
Of mice and oaks. Conditional outcomes in a seed-dispersal mutualism. L Suselbeek 2014. PhD thesis. Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Most of Lutra’s readers will know Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags, so-called chips, for monitoring pets and other animals or to study population dynamics. Suselbeek (2014) applies this technique on seeds of oak (Quercus robur) in order to track the dispersal of seeds and study the fate of seeds dispersed by scatter-hoarding rodents. This thesis focuses on seed-dispersal interactions between wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus), bank vole (Myodes glareolus) and wild boar (Sus scrofa). Based on his results the use of PIT tags on acorns is a suitable, novel method to track the dispersal of acorns without rodents being able to remove the tags. Tags buried up to 30 cm were retrieved and used to show...