DOI: 10.5061/dryad.k3m40
title: Data from: Behavioral flexibility versus rules of thumb: how do grey squirrels deal with conflicting risks?

description: In order to test how flexibly animals are able to behave when making
 trade-offs that involve assessing constantly changing risks, we examined
 whether wild Eastern grey squirrels showed flexibility of behavioral
 responses in the face of variation in 2 conflicting risks, cache
 pilferage, and predation. We established that cache pilferage risk
 decreased with distance from cover and was thus negatively correlated with
 long-term predation risk. We then measured changes in foraging and
 food-caching behavior in the face of changes in the risk of predation and
 food theft over a short time-scale. We found that, overall, squirrels move
 further away from the safety of cover when they cache, compared to when
 they forage, as predicted by pilferage risk. However, there was no effect
 of immediate pilferage or predation risk (i.e., the presence of potential
 predators or pilferers) on the distance from cover at which they cached,
 and only a slight increase in forage distance when predation risk
 increased. These results suggest that “rules of thumb” based on static
 cues may be more cost-effective for assessing risk than closely tracking
 changes over time in the way suggested by a number of models of risk
 assessment.
description: cachedistance data
 dryadData were collected in
 the field and entered into SPSS. Column headings are:
 SquirrelID=individual squirrels, obsnum = observation number for each
 individual squirrel, site=which of 4 sites the data were collected from,
 cachedistance=distance of the cache, in metres, from the nearest tree,
 numsqpres=the number of other squirrels present at the time the focal
 squirrel made the cache, disturbances=the number of people that passed
 through the site during the observation periodforagedistance data
 dryadData were collected in
 the field and entered into SPSS. Column headings are:
 SquirrelID=individual squirrels, obsnum = observation number for each
 individual squirrel, site=which of 4 sites the data were collected from,
 cachedistance=distance of the cache, in metres, from the nearest tree,
 numsqpres=the number of other squirrels present at the time the focal
 squirrel made the cache, disturbances=the number of people that passed
 through the site during the observation periodhuman predation data
 dryadData were collected in
 the field and entered into SPSS. Data columns are as follows:
 location=site where squirrel was observed, Squirrel_ID=individual squirrel
 ID, V3=observation number for each squirrel, date=date of observation,
 time=time of day observation was taken, No_of_human=number of humans
 present when the squirrel was observed, No_of_dog=number of dogs present
 when the squirrel was observed, distancem=distance in metres between the
 squirrel and the nearest human and/or dog, escaped_or_not=whether or not
 the squirrel stopped it's current activity and ran, escaped=whether
 or not the squirrel stopped it's current activity and ran using 0 for
 no and 1 for yesartificial cache
 datadata were collected in
 the field and entered into an Excel file. Column definitions are within
 the file itself.