Squirrel Nut Caching Lab

Winter survival, optimal foraging and the energy budget of a red squirrel (illustrative model)

Time

Presets

The woodland and the squirrel

Climate

Climate, body mass and seed need a restart; the other sliders act immediately.

Live readouts

Graphs

Experiment: how many nuts for one winter?

Starting on 1 December with a given number of cached nuts and no fresh food, the squirrel agent is run through 120 winter days (to 31 March) many times with different weather and cache layouts. The fraction that never runs out of energy is compared with an analytic energy balance.

Independent numerical checks

The science

Squirrel, nuts and drey are drawn about 2.4 times larger than life so that they can be seen. Quality: