A Comparison of the Influence of Fossorial Rodents on the Dynamics of Mediterranean Grassland Landscapes in Chile and California

该奖项支持圣地亚哥州立大学的乔治·考克斯和智利拉塞雷纳大学的路易斯·孔特雷拉斯在化石(穴居)啮齿动物系统生物学方面的合作研究。这项工作将包括对化石啮齿动物生态学的两个方面的比较研究：土丘形成和种群能量学及其对植物群落的影响。加州集团将专注于其中的第一个，智利人将强调第二个。然而，两个小组都将使用基本的数据收集程序来获得对加州和智利关系进行综合比较所必需的数据。这两个地区在土壤和气候条件上非常相似。无线电跟踪和个体标记的结合将被用来跟踪口袋地鼠和Corros在它们的聚居地附近。将研究土丘建设、食物储存和挖掘隧道方面的差异，以确定殖民行为的影响，以及在建立永久领土和游牧行为方面的差异。对这两组化石啮齿动物的行为进行比较，将揭示导致大规模斑块产生的特征，包括北美的土丘和临时池塘盆地，但不包括智利。这将有助于理解这两个气候生态系统的近期演化史。两国的科学家和研究生都将参加场地生态学的实地研究。因此，这两个小组的优势将为发展中国家科学计划下的这一合作产生的科学做出贡献。

This award supports cooperative research on the systematic biology of fossorial (burrowing) rodents to be conducted by George Cox of San Diego State University and Luis Contreras of the University of La Serena in Chile. The work will consist of comparative studies of two aspects of fossorial rodent ecology: mound formation and population energetics and its impact on plant communities. The California group will focus on the first of these and the Chileans will emphasize the second. Nevertheless, basic data collection procedures will be used by both groups to obtain data essential to synthetic comparisons of the Californian and Chilean relationships. These two areas are highly similar in soil and climactic conditions. A combination of radiotracking and individual marking will be used to follow pocket gophers and coruros near their colony sites. Differences in mound building, food caching and tunneling will be studied to determine the effect of colonial behavior and differences in establishing permanent territories and nomadic behavior. Comparison of the behavior of these two groups of fossorial rodents will reveal characteristics that lead to the production of large-scale patchiness, consisting of mounds and temporary pond basins in North America but not in Chile. This will contribute to the understanding of recent evolutionary history of the two climate ecosystems. Both scientists and graduate students from both countries will participate in the field studies of site ecology. Thus the strengths of both groups will contribute to the science produced by this collaboration under the Science in Developing Countries program.