MADE FOR EACH OTHER: CLARK’S NUTCRACKER AND THE WHITEBARK PINE

About two-thirds of the world’s ‘soft’ pines (Pinus subgenus Strobus) have heavy wingless seeds known or suspected to be transported and cached in the soil by jays and nutcrackers (Aves: Corvidae). The relationship of Clark’s Nutcracker and Whitebark Pine in western North America is clearly mutualistic and coevolved, and has affected the evolutionary ecology of both species in profound ways.
In brief, nutcrackers sow Whitebark Pines while Whitebark Pines feed nutcrackers.
This paper focuses on these species as an example of corvid-pine mutualisms.

IV International Conifer Conference

R.M. Lanner

cache site, coevolution, conifers, ecosystems, forest succession, mutualism, Nucifraga columbiana, nutcrackers, Pinus albicaulis

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2003.615.9