Life Sciences Commons^™

The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Cavity Tree: A Very Special Pine, Richard N. Conner, D. Craig Rudolph, Daniel Saenz, Robert H. Johnson

Faculty Publications

The adaptation of red-cockaded woodpeckers (Picoides borealis) to fire-maintained southern pine ecosystems has included the development of behaviors that permit the species to use living pines for their cavity trees. Their adaptation to pine ecosystems has also involved a major adjustment in the species' breeding system to cooperative breeding, probably in response to the extended time period required to excavate a completed cavity in a living pine and the relative rarity of completed cavities for nesting. The characteristics of live pines make them variable in their suitability as cavity trees, leading to the evolution of selection behavior among woodpeckers. Red-cockaded …