Project PECAN

Scatter-hoarding squirrels constantly face a fundamental decision: consume a food item immediately or cache it for future use. In urban environments, this choice becomes increasingly complex as squirrels encounter a greater diversity of human-introduced food resources. Each item presents a unique combination of morphology, nutritional value, toxin load, and storability, all of which may, to different extents influence its immediate versus future value. Project PECAN investigates how squirrels integrate these traits to guide eat-or-cache decisions, elucidating the physicochemical rules of scatter-hoarding foragers facing diverse food resources in increasingly urbanized environments.