Some trees and birds are made for each other. Take, for example, the whitebark pine, a timberline tree that graces the moraines and ridgetops of the northern Rockies and the Sierra Nevada-Cascades system. This lovely five-needled pine, long-lived and rugged though it is, cannot reproduce without the help of Clark's nutcracker. And the nutcracker, though it captures insects in the summer and steals a bit of carrion, cannot raise its young in these alpine habitats
without feeding them the nutritious seeds of the whitebark pine. Between them, these dwellers of the high mountains provide for each others' posterity, which leads biologists to label their relationship
symbiotic, or mutualistic. But there is more to it than that, because in playing out their roles these partners change the landscape. The environment they create provides life's necessities to many other plants and animals. Working in concert, Clark's nutcracker and the whitebark pine build ecosystems. In Made for Each Other: A Symbiosis of Birds and Pines, Ronald M. Lanner details for the first time this fascinating relationship between pine trees and Corvids
(nutcrackers and jays), showing how mutualism can drive not only each others' evolution, but affect the ecology of many other members of the surrounding ecosystem as well. Lanner explains that many of the world's pines
have seeds not adapted to wind dispersal. Fortunately, their seeds are harvested from the cone and scattered over many miles by seed-eating jays and nutcrackers who bury millions of seeds in the soil as a winter food source. Remarkably, these "pine nut" dependent birds can find their caches even through deep snow. Seeds left in the soil germinate, perpetuating the pines and guarantee future seeds for future birds. Moreover, the newly "planted" whitebark pine groves encourage further tree
growth, such as Engelmann spruce, and eventually the patches of open-grown woodland coalesce, forming a continuous forest. Large forest stands offer cover for large animals like bear, elk, and moose, and
provide territories for Red Squirrels. These squirrels also depend on pine seeds as a food source, storing large quantities of seeds on the ground, piled up against fallen logs or stumps, or buried in the forest litter. In the fall both black and grizzly bears are preparing to hibernate and must increase their stores of body fat. The seeds of whitebark pine are large and very rich, containing sixty to seventy percent fat, and are an ideal food for this purpose. The large seed reserves created
by the squirrels become a feasting ground for these bears. Meanwhile, the sun-loving trees shaded out by the maturing decay offer housing for cavity-nesters like woodpeckers and nuthatches, as well as a
breeding ground for fungi which are eagerly devoured by mule deer and red squirrels in search of protein. Eventually, when the forest is ignited in one of the thunderstorms so common and so violent in the high country, an open area is created, attracting nutcrackers in need of a new cache site, and the cycle begins again. Focusing on the Rocky Mountains and the American Southwest, and ranging as far afield as the Alps, Finland, Siberia, and China, this beautifully illustrated and
gracefully written work illuminates the phenomenon of co-evolution.
Industry Reviews
"A clear and convincing story of a fascinating example of the complexity of nature."--IBIS
"This accessible book will interest nature and bird enthusiasts."--Library Journal
"This is a wonderful book, and could be read with profit by anyone interested in birds, conservation, community ecology, or co-evolution."--Paul Ehrlich, co-author of The Birder's Handbook
"Original and fascinating....Easy to read [and] accessible."--Peter H. Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden
"There are only two or three people in the world that could write this book from a position of authority, [Ronald M. Lanner] is perhaps the best equipped."--Stephen VanderWall, University of Nevada
"This book is recommended for larger collections and will be of interest to bird lovers and those with general nature interests."--Electronic Green Journal
"A clear and convincing story of a fascinating example of the complexity of nature."--IBIS
"This accessible book will interest nature and bird enthusiasts."--Library Journal
"This is a wonderful book, and could be read with profit by anyone interested in birds, conservation, community ecology, or co-evolution."--Paul Ehrlich, co-author of The Birder's Handbook
"Original and fascinating....Easy to read [and] accessible."--Peter H. Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden
"There are only two or three people in the world that could write this book from a position of authority, [Ronald M. Lanner] is perhaps the best equipped."--Stephen VanderWall, University of Nevada
"This book is recommended for larger collections and will be of interest to bird lovers and those with general nature interests."--Electronic Green Journal
"Lanner will convince many that the interaction between nutcrackers and pines is truly remarkable. Few other plants are so clearly dependent on a single species to disperse its seeds and few other dispersal agents are so reliant on the seeds of a single or several related species. . . . Lanner has provided an enjoyable read that gives us an easy entry into a fascinating system. He has done a great service by summarizing much of what is known about the
nutcracker-pine interaction for a wide audience. It is now up to future students to make this interaction a classic. All biology libraries should have a copy of this book, and I highly recommend it to those
with an interest in birds, pines, ecology, or evolution, or to those who just want to learn more about an important feature of the mountainous West."--The Condor
"In this accessible book, Lanner tells the compelling story of the ecological relationships between pine-seed caching birds and the trees they utilize. He details much of the natural history of these two groups, focusing on Clark's nutcracker and whitebark pine as his primary example of this symbiosis. The information compiled about the lives of the organisms involved comprises the book's most effective sections. . . . Lanner argues that whitebark pines are
dependent upon nutcrackers for their dispersal and provides a plausible evolutionary scenario in which pine-seed caching birds could have selected for the specific traits exhibited by modern pines. . . .
[T]he story of this coevolution is quite convincing. . . . The general audience this book seems aimed toward will probably find his persuasive style quite engaging. . . . [T]his book should be valuable to anyone interested in a thorough introduction to the bird-pine symbiosis."--The Prairie Naturalist
