Come - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

HOT tan (lie Alpine chipmunks move
down into the lodgepole pine belt as
tossing out the entrenched San Bernardinos
is too costly in effort. And any San
Bernardino trying to muscle into the pinyon
pine belt lower down, is met by determined
Yellow Pine chipmunk resistance.
What would happen if this natural status
quo were upset?
Bilogist M. A. Chappell live-trapped
and displaced all the Yellow Pine chipmunks
from a portion of their normal
habitat. With them gone, plenty of Least
chips promptly left their sagebrush and
settled for good in the vacant pinyon
pine territory. But when he reversed
things, not a single Yellow Pine chipmunk
was successful in establishing a
home in the sagebrush.
So the zonation stacking of the chipmunks
is not due to aggression alone.
Physiological barriers are there, too, as
Chappell working alone and Heller teaming
with D. M. Gates this time, showed
in their metabolism and energy budget
studies.
The thing is that every animal has a
natural body temperature range. It can
get too cold or hot for a short period, but
GORDON'S