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Sweeping the house clean: burrow architecture and seasonal digging activity in the E ast A frican root rat from T anzania
Author(s) -
Katandukila J. V.,
Chimimba C. T.,
Bennett N. C.,
Makundi R. H.,
Le Comber S. C.,
Faulkes C. G.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of zoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.915
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1469-7998
pISSN - 0952-8369
DOI - 10.1111/jzo.12143
Subject(s) - burrow , digging , foraging , biology , nest (protein structural motif) , fractal dimension , ecology , seasonal breeder , zoology , fractal , mathematics , archaeology , mathematical analysis , biochemistry , history
We investigated changes in burrow architecture and fractal dimension across seasons and between the sexes in the solitary E ast A frican root rat T achyoryctes splendens over an entire calendar year. The basic burrow system comprised a main tunnel reticulating into foraging tunnels, a nest consisting of food store chamber, latrine and sleeping area, and a bolt hole. Main tunnel length was strongly affected by sex, and contrary to expectations, it was longer for females than for males (during both the dry and the wet seasons). The number and the length of foraging tunnels were affected by both sex and season, with females' burrows having more foraging tunnels than males in both the dry and the wet seasons. Females also had burrows with higher fractal dimension than males, while fractal dimension increased with burrow length for both sexes. We suggest that unlike the solitary bathyergid mole‐rats, male T . splendens do not construct larger burrows than females in the search for mates, but rather females have larger burrows with more foraging tunnels resulting from the increased need for provisioning of their young.