Food caching and differential cache pilferage: a field study of coexistence of sympatric kangaroo rats and pocket mice

Ecologists studying sympatric heteromyid rodents have sought evidence for species differences in primary foraging abilities and preferences and/or behavioural responses to predation risk in order to explain coexistence. The present field study was conducted to test the hypothesis that another factor may be involved, namely differences in caching patterns, which may result in differences in vulnerability to pilferage. We examined differences …