Configuration and geometry of sap-holes drilled by the White-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes cactorum): effects of tree-structure, sap-traits and plant health
M. Gabriela Núñez Montellano A B and Pedro G. Blendinger A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Instituto de Ecología Regional and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, CC 34, 4107 Yerba Buena, Tucumán, Argentina.
B Corresponding author. Email: nunez_gabriela@yahoo.com.ar
Emu 115(2) 168-175 https://doi.org/10.1071/MU14066
Submitted: 12 February 2014 Accepted: 8 October 2014 Published: 4 April 2015
Abstract
Several species of woodpecker drill holes in living trees to feed on flows of sap. We describe sap-holes drilled by the White-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes cactorum) on plant species in semi-arid woodlands of northern Argentina, and examine, for the first time, attributes of the plants that may help to explain the configuration and geometry of sap-holes made by a species of woodpecker. Sap-holes vary among plant species, mostly in size and shape, and in their arrangement and location on tree branches. Moreover, patterning of sap-hole are closely similar in structurally similar species, showing foraging decisions of White-fronted Woodpeckers associated with plant structure-types at a supra-specific level. In large trees, sap-holes were small, round and arranged in rows on branches or trunks of large diameter, whereas in smaller Prosopis trees, sap-holes were rectangular and located on branches of small diameter. In other species of tree and shrub sap-holes were large and irregular, and on branches of intermediate diameter. The size of holes was positively correlated with substrate diameter for small and intermediate branches of a given group of species, but was independent of diameter in tree species with holes on the trunk. The switch between sap-consumption strategies related to attributes of trees opens the possibility that White-fronted Woodpeckers drill sap-holes trying to maximise sap-harvesting.
Additional keywords: drilling behaviour, sap-feeding, sap-tree, semi-arid Chaco forests.
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