• Hello_there
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    1237 months ago

    So, it’s more interesting than this. The trees are playing the squirrels. There’s a normal amount of acorns that can support a normal amount of squirrels. But once every few years, the trees make a bunch more acorns. More than the normal amount of squirrels can eat. But not frequent enough that the number of squirrels increase. So the squirrels go crazy and hide em everywhere that year, but there’s no way they can eat them all, so there are a bunch of acorns planted.
    Tldr: trees manipulate # of acorns to get squirrels to plant more.

    • Track_ShovelOP
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      7 months ago

      You don’t get a 250 year old forest in 25 years

    • XbSuper
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      17 months ago

      ? I planted an oak tree when I was 6, it’s now over 40ft tall, and is currently dropping more acorns than the squirrels can handle. I’m 37 now for reference.

        • XbSuper
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          47 months ago

          5-10 years, I just looked it up. So 1st set of grandkids should be able to benefit, as it’s dropping acorns by year 10 or so

  • AzureDiamond
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    97 months ago

    What a hero, single-handedly counteracting deforestation. You go squirrel man, you go!

  • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
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    47 months ago

    So all the clever squirrels die of malnutrition?

    Makes me wonder which mechanism has limited human intelligence.

  • ackzsel
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    7 months ago

    Huh, I’m not a squirrel expert at all but I understood that they’re pretty good at remembering their stashes.