Clark's nutcracker forest community visitation: Whitebark pine maintains a keystone seed disperser.

ABSTRACT: Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) are obligate seed dispersers for whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), but they frequently use other conifer seed resources because of annual variability in cone production or geographic variation in whitebark pine availability. Whitebark pine is declining from several threats including white pine blister rust, leading to potential population declines in the nutcracker and the pine. We hypothesize that where there are few additional seed resources, whitebark pine becomes the key and limiting resource supporting nutcracker populations. We investigated how nutcrackers use coniferous forest community types within Yellowstone National Park to determine potential seed resources and the importance of whitebark pine. We established sites repre

SUBMITTER: McLaren TH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10739129 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature