Restoration Ecology and Conservation Biology

wrat provision

Fox SquattrayMost of my work in this area has asked how ecological interactions may affect restoration and conservation efforts. In particular, my students, collaborators (Tim Smyser, Harmony Dalgleish, Nate Lichti, Mike Steele) and I have explored the link between American chestnut and the small mammals that function as predators and dispersers of their seeds. American chestnut once was a dominant component of the overstory in eastern U.S. forests, but an introduced fungus led to its functional extirpation. We have modeled the likely effect of American chestnut on small mammal populations. We also have considered how interactions with these “conditional mutualists” may influence the survival and spread of seeds of disease-resistant hybrid chestnut from restoration plantings. Environmental context, differential preferences, and frequency dependent selection all appear to be capable of affecting seed fate. From a conservation perspective, annual supplementation of preferred seeds may be of little benefit to the endangered Allegheny woodrat, at least during years of reasonable ambient mast availability.