. Biology of the Heteromyidae. Heteromyidae. 562 REICHMAN AND PRICE uj 2 o SEED SPECIES Fig. 4. —Relative abundances of 15 species of seeds in four microhabitats at a Sonoran Desert site. Histograms represent the proportional rep- resentation of the most common plants species in the seed pools of each microhabitat (number of seeds of species //total number of seeds), based on total sample sizes of 9,203 seeds for Large Open, 12,773 for Small Open, 13,826 for Large Bush, and 11,912 for Tree microhabitats. Fc = Filago californica, Uk = Unknown, Mv = Mol- lugo verticillata, Pr = Pectocarya re
. Biology of the Heteromyidae. Heteromyidae. 562 REICHMAN AND PRICE uj 2 o SEED SPECIES Fig. 4. —Relative abundances of 15 species of seeds in four microhabitats at a Sonoran Desert site. Histograms represent the proportional rep- resentation of the most common plants species in the seed pools of each microhabitat (number of seeds of species //total number of seeds), based on total sample sizes of 9,203 seeds for Large Open, 12,773 for Small Open, 13,826 for Large Bush, and 11,912 for Tree microhabitats. Fc = Filago californica, Uk = Unknown, Mv = Mol- lugo verticillata, Pr = Pectocarya recurvata, Se = Spermolepis echinata, Cm = Cryptantha mi- crantha, Lh = Lotus humistratus, Lt = L. to- mentellus, Dp = Descurainia pinnata, Cp = Cryptantha ptewcarpa, Mp = Muhlenbergia por- ted. Data are taken from Price and Reichman (1987), Appendix L specialization may occur for other reasons (, predator avoidance; see above), and the microspatial distribution of seeds will influence what subset of all seeds produced are encountered. Price and Reichman (1987), Price and Waser (1985), Reichman (1984), and Reichman and Oberstein (1977) found distinct differences in seed densities (Fig. 3) and species composition (Fig. 4). Hence heteromyid species that forage in specific microhabitats should have different seeds available to them. Such differences in seed availability may explain differences be- tween sympatric species in the composition of diets (cf. Reichman, 1975). Availability and distribution of seeds are affected by the foraging effectiveness of closely and distantly related taxa of grani- vores (Brown et al., 1979). Brown and Da- vidson (1977) noted reciprocal increases when granivorous rodents or ants were re- moved from experimental plots and sus- pected that this was the result of alterations in seed availability left by the experimen- tally extracted taxon. Brown et al. (1979) and Reichman (1979) noted actual changes in seed densities and distributions as a result
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