Cachers, scavengers, and thieves: A novel mechanism for desert rodent coexistence

A biologically explicit simulation model of resource competition between two species of seed-eating heteromyid rodent indicates that stable coexistence is possible on a homogeneous resource if harvested food is stored and consumers steal each other's caches. Here we explore the coexistence mechanisms involved by analyzing how consumer phenotypes and presence of a noncaching consumer affect the competitive outcome. Without cache exchange, the winning consumer is better at harvesting seeds and produces more offspring per gram of stored food. With cache exchange, coexistence is promoted by interspecific trade-offs between harvest ability, metabolic efficiency, and ability to pilfer defended caches of heterospecifics or scavenge undefended caches of dead conspecifics or heterospecifics. Cache exchange via pilferage can equalize competitor fitnesses but has little stabilizing effect and leads to stable coexistence only in the presence of a noncaching consumer. In contrast, scavenging is both equalizing and stabilizing and promotes coexistence without a third consumer. Because body size affects a heteromyid rodent's metabolic rate, seed harvest rate, caching strategy, and ability to steal caches, interspecific differences in body size should produce the trade-offs necessary for coexistence. The observation that coexisting heteromyids differ in body size therefore indicates that cache exchange may promote diversity in heteromyid communities.