贮食动物的盗食与反盗食行为策略

Cache Pilferage and Protection Behavioral Strategies in Food-hoarding Animals

食物贮藏是许多动物应对食物短缺、保障其生存和繁衍的一种适应性行为。保护好贮藏食物以供食物短缺期利用,是食物贮藏成功的标志和进化动力。同种或异种动物盗食是贮藏食物损失的重要原因。嗅觉、视觉与空间记忆、随机搜寻等是动物搜寻和盗取食物的重要手段;避免盗食、阻止盗食和容忍盗食是动物反盗食的重要策略。动物通常采用多种行为策略进行盗食和反盗食,分配食物资源,形成相对稳定的种内、种间关系。盗食与反盗食互作及其对贮食行为进化的意义已成为行为生态学的研究热点和前沿之一,针对鸟类和哺乳类动物的研究尤为丰富。本文总结了贮食动物常见的盗食和反盗食行为策略及其相互作用的研究进展,主要内容涉及贮食动物利用嗅觉、视觉与空间记忆、随机搜寻等盗取其他个体食物的盗食策略,以及通过隐藏、转移、保卫、容忍等方式减少被盗食,保护贮藏食物的行为策略。针对现有研究状况,从种间盗食与反盗食及其与物种共存的关系,种间非对称盗食关系及其适应意义,盗食与反盗食最适行为策略及其与贮食动物适合度的关系等方面对今后研究提出了建议。

Food hoarding for future use is an important behavioral strategy adopted by animals to adapt to periodic food scarcity. The evolution of food hoarding behavior critically depends upon the actual consumption of hoarded foods, and enhancement of their fitness. Pilferage by inter- and intra-specific competitors is one of the key reasons of cache-loss for hoarders. In the evolutionary arms race between hoarders and pilferers, both of them should consider the trade-off between cache pilferage and protection. Food hoarding mammals and birds often exhibit avoidance, prevention, and/or tolerance to reduce cache pilferage by others (cache protection), whereas, they rely on olfactory cues, spatial memory and random searching to pilfer food from cache owners (cache pilferage). Food sharing through cache pilferage and protection among sympatric animals that share similar diets is beneficial for coexistence, and has recently attracted much attention in behavioral ecology. Previous studies show that food hoarders (e.g., mammals and birds) usually adopt one or several strategies of hiding caches, changing cache sites, fighting, evicting, or sharing caches to reduce cache pilferage (cache protection), and of olfactory cues, visual and spatial cues, or random searching to pilfer foods from others (cache pilferage). Interactions of cache pilferage and protection among sympatric animals are beneficial for their coexistence both at the population and community levels. Contributions of cache pilferage and protection to coexistence in sympatric animals, asymmetric pilferage between interspecific species and optimal model of cache pilferage and protection in food hoarding animals are needed more attention in the future.