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Evolutionary, molecular and comparative zoology
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 58(2)

Ecology of the rare but irruptive Pilliga mouse, Pseudomys pilligaensis. III. Dietary ecology

Hideyuki Tokushima A B C and Peter J. Jarman A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Ecosystem Management, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.

B Present address: 3-1-41-705 Hino, Kounan-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 234-0051, Japan.

C Corresponding author. Email: pilligaensis@yahoo.co.jp

Australian Journal of Zoology 58(2) 85-93 https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO09107
Submitted: 24 October 2009  Accepted: 6 April 2010   Published: 20 May 2010

Abstract

The diet of the Pilliga mouse, Pseudomys pilligaensis, was analysed from 430 faecal samples collected from ~340 individuals across different seasons over a period of five years that included a wild fire and subsequent irruption and sharp decline of the population. The primary food items in all seasons were seeds and fruits from diverse plant species, but the mice also consumed a wide range of other foods, including leaves, invertebrates, fungi and mosses. Invertebrates, the second most abundant type of food item, were eaten in all seasons but, with fungi, increased in winter and spring when consumption of seeds and fruits declined. Mice consumed significantly more fungi and mosses before the wild fire than after it. Diets differed between sites rather little in the proportions of food categories, but greatly in the relative proportions of particular seed types in the seed+fruit category. The population irruption could have been triggered by a high reproductive rate that coincided with higher consumption by females of protein-rich foods such as invertebrates and fungi. Population density collapsed at sites as soil stores of utilisable seeds became depleted, mice surviving where their diet could remain diverse.


Acknowledgements

We thank Drs Peter McGee (University of Sydney) and David Backhouse (University of New England) for identifying fungi; Mr Peter Brookhouse (Fire Management Officer, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service) for providing the fire-history data; Mr Stuart Green and Ms Catherine Wass for providing mouse faecal samples before the 1997 fire; and Ms Cate MacGregor for her help with dietary analysis.


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