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ika most of you probably know this but despite how adorably mousy our fluffy pika friends look they are actually not rodents they are lagomorphs bunny relatives and they live in alpine habitats mainly over about 8 200 feet in our area there are 30 known species of pika but only two in north america and the american pika ochotona princeps is the one most people are familiar with ochotona collaris lives in alaska and canada so that s the one i ll be talking about pikas are really quite amazing because they live in extremely inhospitable areas cold climate high elevations and steep rocky talus slopes in many parts of their range the growing season is only about two months long and as herbivores who rely mainly on grasses and forbs herbaceous broad leaved plants they pretty much have to gather and store ten months worth of food in those two months as well as continuing to feed themselves and put on weight for the winter at the same time the activity of gathering food to store for later is called haying insert image of pika in overalls and holding a pitchfork here if you see a pika on a hike chances are it has a mouthful of grasses or leaves that it s taking to cache in various locations beneath the rocks one study found that pikas make around 14 000 trips to gather food over an 8 10 week season storing food for the long cold season is vital for them because unlike so many other small mammals that live in similar conditions pikas don t hibernate they are active all year long even if most of that time is spent being active under the snow in their talus slope burrows while they do manage to collect some food during that time in the form of lichen and evergreen plants the main source of sustenance comes from their food caches but as you might imagine storing food for 10 months or more can be a problem particularly when what you re storing is leafy plant material plants decompose they get moldy and develop bacteria they lose nutritive value how can a pika possibly ensure it has food stored that will keep all year well the genius of the pika is that it turns the plants own defenses against them plants don t like having their leafy parts eaten because it reduces their ability to photosynthesize so they have evolved countless ways of discouraging predation by herbivores and the herbivores have co evolved countless ways overcoming those defenses one of the main ways plants make themselves undesirable or inedible is to produce toxic compounds the most common of which are tannins and other phenols which make them unpleasant to eat and difficult or impossible to digest some animals have evolved a resistance to these compounds such as enzymes or gut bacteria that help break them down but the pika does something else entirely in the summer months the pika will gorge itself on plants that are low in phenolic compounds as they are readily digestible but it will select a range of plants to store for later that are higher in phenols the pika won t eat these plants immediately it caches them for the winter the reason for this is that phenolic compounds don t just discourage predation they also act as a preservative plants higher in phenols don t decompose as quickly as the more immediately desirable kinds what s more as they age the toxins break down as well rendering them edible and what s more more nutritious than plants stored for the same time that were low in phenols to begin with turns out pikas can tell the difference between plants with high and low phenol levels even when they are presented with a choice of plants which are the same species but individually have differing phenol levels pikas selected the lower level plants for immediate consumption this is a fantastic strategy for a creature like the pika they eat the most nutritious and digestible food first then move on to the other plants as they become more consumable over time while at the same time ensuring they have supply of food throughout the whole winter and that it will remain nutritious and safe to eat due to anti bacterial and anti fungal action of the phenols the pika has completely co opted the plant strategy for it s own benefit sadly these little guys may be among the species most effected by climate change as warming temperatures reduce their habitat and force them to move to higher elevations to combat the heat however in the past year there has been new evidence of pikas living at lower elevations than it was previously thought that they could tolerate so perhaps the pika is even more adaptable than we think given their clever food storage habits it wouldn t surprise me dearing d m 1997 the manipulation of plant toxins by a food hoarding herbivore ochotona princeps ecology vol 78 no 3 pp 774 781 smith m t and m l weston 1990 ochotona princeps mammalian species no 352 pp 1 8 posted in animal behavior botany chemistry evolution natural history survival strategies indian paintbrush a pretty parasite july 27 2011 12 comments castilleja miniata a very common paintbrush species in western north america anyone who has spent much time in the western u s is probably familiar with one of our most attractive wildflowers castilleja or indian paint brush blooming riotously in the summer from deserts to alpine meadows the nearly 200 species in this genus many endemic to north america put on quite a display a riot of reds oranges yellows pinks and purples despite being maniacally difficult to tell some of the species apart indian paintbrush is one of my personal favorite wildflowers and not just for it s breathtaking colors there are a couple interesting things about castilleja first off the colorful blooms that make it so remarkable are not actually the flowers they are the leafy bracts surrounding the very inconspicuous and uninteresting greenish white flowers at the very tip much like poinsettia all the action is in the specially formed leaves you can kind of see this once you know what to look for as the color sort of shades back to green as you move down the stem haustorium note how it goes through the tissue but doesn t puncture the cells another thing you may or may not notice about castilleja is that you almost never see it alone some wildflowers like mountain bluebells or little sunflower form huge monolithic stands but indian paintbrush is almost always scattered through an area with other plants the reason for this is that although it looks just like any other green forb to the naked eye castilleja is actually parasitic on other plants in fact it comes from an entire family of plant on plant parasites orobanchaceae although levels of parasitism range greatly in this family they all have a defining characteristic haustoria haustoria are specialized roots that drill into the roots of other plants for the purpose of stealing their resources of the parasitic plants found in this family castilleja is actually a fairly mild parasite known as a root hemiparasite since they have fairly normal green foliage they can photosynthesize on their own but they get a huge boost in fitness from stealing water and other essential minerals from a host plant this may be an adaptation to places where resources like water are limited the growing season is short or the soil is poor and while in the wild castilleja is almost never found without a host they can technically survive on their own although they are much less robust in every way if grown in isolation castilleja also does not kill its host plant although it often does take a toll on its fitness and growth castilleja species are generalist parasites although certain species do much better with and seem to prefer particular host species they will usually take whatever they can get because the species available to them may vary greatly and because they inhabit such a wide range of ecosystems it s to their benefit to be flexible and work with what is around if you re too picky you might find yourself with no host at all in dry areas sagebrush is a common host plant to desert species of paintbrush in other places lupine species another large genus of the western u s found in a range of habitats are one of the most common hosts in fact castilleja plants that are able to latch on to lupine as a host plant may be very lucky individuals red paintbrush grooving on lupine a common sight in the summer as a member of the bean family lupines have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen fixing bacteria and any plant parasitizing them is going to get increased access to nitrogen studies have shown that castilleja using lupines as host experience better growth increased reproduction and increased pollen output lupines may even offer some protection from herbivory to castilleja as along with nutrients parasites also receive the alkaloid lupinine which is toxic and bitter to animals this protection may be conferred to the castilleja although studies have shown mixed results in whether having lupine as a host actually does decrease herbivory on indian paintbrush or not either way it s clear there are big benefits to taking advantage of lupine and in my area it s not uncommon to see meadows full of almost exclusively lupine and paintbrush castilleja along with other root hemiparasites can actually have a surprisingly large effect on community structure as a whole introduction of a species like this can shift the entire dynamic by helping or hurting various other competitors for resources say you have a plant community that is dominated by one species of herbaceous plant there is another species present but it just can t compete and is barely hanging on now in comes a root hemiparasite like castilleja it gets big benefits from parasitizing the dominant species and not much from the secondary species but in the process of parasitizing the dominant species it greatly reduces that species fitness suddenly the secondary species can compete this can lead to a community going from a virtual monoculture to either a stable system with the three species parasite dominant and secondary existing in roughly equal proportions or a constantly fluctuating system where one species becomes extremely successful for awhile before the other takes over in a repeated fight for dominance castilleja rehexifolia a pretty pink paintbrush in addition if the root hemiparasite does better on the less dominant species it may actual confer a competitive advantage on the secondary species and help it to increase its range against the dominant species while the secondary species alone may have no hope of out competing the dominant species for limited resources in combination with castilleja or another hemiparasite they together may succeed in elbowing out the normally successful dominant and either sharing or completely excluding it from the system it previously ruled as you can see castilleja and other root hemiparasites are forces to be reckoned with but there is still much we don t know about them are there other ways they confer benefits to their hosts are some species evolving to be host specific how much do they actually take from their hosts and is their color variable within a species and location dependent on the nutrients and minerals they receive from the host plant or is there another factor the complicated systems in which they exist and the huge variation among species make any questions about this genus difficult to answer definitively references smith d 2000 the population dynamics and community ecology of root hemiparasitic plants the american naturalist 155 1 13 23 doi 10 1086 303294 adler l s 2003 host species affects herbivory pollination and reproduction in experiments with parasitic castilleja ecology 84 8 2083 2091 doi 10 1890 02 0542 posted in botany community ecology ecosystem dynamics local ecology natural history parasites plant ecology tags castilleja hemiparasite indian paintbrush lupine lazy friday links 7 1 11 july 1 2011 leave a comment what july already happy canada day everyone and happy independence day on monday i hope everyone s got fun plans for the weekend since it s supposed to hit 103 f here on sunday mine include finding a cold lake above 10 000 ft and staying there enjoy the linkfest as you run out the clock before the holiday weekend ecology evolution links 1 this is what we get for decades of fire suppression the mega fires now raging in the southwestern u s are so large and intense they may cause permanent damage to the ecosystem despite it normally being considered a fire adapted system small fires rejuvenate but ones like these only devastate wired science 2 crows already one of the animals strongly in the running to take over the planet from us along with octopi dolphins and ants not only have great memories but they can transfer their knowledge of danger to other crows who haven t experienced them bird telepathy let s hope not but however they do it it s wicked cool global animal 3 let s hear it for the owls the national fish and wildlife service this week after years of waiting finally published recovery plans for both the northern spotted owl and the mexican spotted owl that is if the mexican spotted owl can survive in the smoldering wreckage that is now much of its territory ny times 4 sing me home a detailed explanation of population structure and fluctuations of southern right whales over the past few centuries no one knows for sure how many there are now but the good news is they seem to be doing fairly well deep blue home 5 scientists are putting together an advertising campaign aimed at monkeys no it s not to get them to volunteer for lab experiments having taught them to use money they now hope associating a product with sex female monkeybits and dominance alpha males will make them chose that product over others my question is will female and male monkeys be equally susceptible to the same ads io9 general science links 1 more casualties of on going budget crises public health due to a government shutdown minnesota will lose many services including it s incredible public health unit which does a swedish quality job of stopping foodborne illnesses before they spread because people getting sick from mn food products will help the economy superbug 2 remember kids there s no such thing as chemical free period if you are chemical free see your doctor as you may have become a ghost speakeasy science 3 as a culture and as a species we are obsessed with things we can t explain often lumped together under the banner of the paranormal but why do our brains hold an answer salon presents an interesting and vaguely science y discussion salon 4 autism ever more common in this country is often spoken of synonymously with an inability to empathize but is that really true or are are we confusing an inability to understand signals with a lack of feeling thinking autism guide 5 matter is so awesome japanese researchers have developed a new alloy that can return to its original shape at a very wide range of temperatures apparently we alrea...