Vv. Pravosudov et Tc. Grubb, MANAGEMENT OF FAT RESERVES AND FOOD CACHES IN TUFTED TITMICE (PARUS BICOLOR) IN RELATION TO UNPREDICTABLE FOOD-SUPPLY, Behavioral ecology, 8(3), 1997, pp. 332-339
In the temperate zone, permanent-resident birds and mammals that do no
t hibernate must survive harsh winter conditions of low ambient temper
ature, long nights, and reduced food levels. To understand the energy
management strategy of food-hoarding birds, it has been hypothesized t
hat such birds respond to increased starvation risk by increasing the
number of their hoards rather than by increasing their fat reserves an
d that they cache early in the day and retrieve their caches later to
achieve fat reserves necessary to survive the night. We tested these h
ypotheses by observing the responses in captivity of a caching bird, t
he tufted titmouse (Parus bicolor), to the combined influences of redu
ced predictability of food and naturally occurring ambient temperature
and photoperiod. When the food supply was unpredictable, birds signif
icantly increased both internal fat reserves at dusk and external food
caches. Initially leaner birds tended to increase their fat reserves
to a greater extent and initially fatter birds tended to cache more fo
od and to fly significantly less. Half the birds also increased their
dawn and mean daily body mass. All birds tended to forage, gain body m
ass, and cache food at significantly lower rates in the morning and at
significantly higher rates in the evening. Cache retrieval showed the
opposite trend, with birds retrieving most of their caches in the mor
ning. Our results do not support the hypothesis that caching birds inc
rease caching rate but not body mass under an unpredictable food regim
e. Instead fat reserves and food caches are both important complementa
ry sources of energy in food-hoarding birds. Energy management by wint
ering birds occurs in response to a number of biotic and abiotic facto
rs acting simultaneously; thus future models must incorporate independ
ent variables in addition to the state of the food supply and time of
day.