Responses to masting are short-lived
date | authors | source | name | quote |
2010 | T. Rawlence | Report submitted at Univeristy of Otago for Dipl. Wild. Mgt. (Supervisor G. Elliot, DoC) | Can a landscape predator control regime be emplyed to ensure sustainable recruitment in endangered mohua (Mohua ochrocephala) populations, South Island New Zealand | “Mice seemed to follow a seasonal influx in population over the summer months and a more pronounced population spike following a beech masting. The mouse tracking stabilises then decreases significantly after seed germination, presumably as food becomes a limiting factor. |
1990 | King, C. | pp 288-312. In King, C.M. (Ed.). The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 600 pp. | Stoats | “in New Zealand beech forests… Mice are the only representative of the female stoat’s most favoured food; the post-seedfall peaks provoke an intense breeding effort , somewhat like the flowering of a desert, and with results similarly short-lived” |
1984 | King, C. | Oxford University Press | Immigrant Killers. Introduced Predators and the conservation of birds in New Zealand | “At the other extreme are the beech forests, where the food supply for the breeding [stoat] female in spring is unreliable, allowing many young to survive one year and few the next, and so the population density of stoats in beech forests is especially variable. However, the mortality of the newly independent young is always very high, and the occasional population peaks decline swiftly, within a few months” |
1984 | King, C. | Oxford University Press | Immigrant Killers. Introduced Predators and the conservation of birds in New Zealand | “Stoat populations normally fluctuate through the year, but in most years they are not abundant. Pure meat-eaters living at the top of the food chain are always rare . But during a mast year in the beech forests, when the forest floor is littered with beech seeds, the feral housemice living in the wild continue to breed and to survive well all winter, so that by spring, when the stoat mothers produce their young, there is plenty of food for them. A few months later, in December and January, an extra large crop of young stoats bursts upon the forest, which can be bad news for the birds still rearing their chicks, and for the newly independent young birds still learning to fend for themselves. Fortunately, these sudden irruptions of stoats last for only a short time: most of the young stoats die within a few months, and by the next spring, things are back to normal again.” |
2010 | T. Rawlence | Report submitted at Univeristy of Otago for Dipl. Wild. Mgt. (Supervisor G. Elliot, DoC) | Can a landscape predator control regime be emplyed to ensure sustainable recruitment in endangered mohua (Mohua ochrocephala) populations, South Island New Zealand | “rat numbers were expected to drop at that time anyway as the seed was germinating. This expected collapse in the rat population happened in the Dart at the same time without the poison.” |