habitat_narrative
Terrestrial
This species is often, but not only, associated with rocky areas on mountain slopes in fynbos vegetation and is almost entirely dependent on fynbos that has all its functional components. It is widespread but poorly correlated with vegetation structure (Bond et al. 1980), which may be due to its specific habitat compositional requirements, such as rodent-pollinated plants and plants with nuts. This species is thus generally not found in modified habitats. It appears to favour more mature fynbos where it can find seeds, particularly from restios (to which it is partial), but also takes green plant material, insects, millipedes and snails (Stuart and Stuart 2007). It changes its diet from primarily insects in winter and spring to mainly seeds in summer and autumn, which parallels a foraging behaviour shift from seed consumption to seed burial (Rusch et al. 2014). However, isotope analysis suggests their diet is stable for most of the year besides summer (van den Heuvel and Midgley 2014). It is nocturnal and thus a prey species for owls (Avery et al. 2005), and sometimes nests in holes rather than cracks and crevices (Breytenbach 1982). It seems to be an opportunistic breeder (Fleming and Nicolson 2002) and to disappear after fire before slowly recovering (van Hensbergen et al. 1992). It is absent from fire-breaks so is probably disadvantaged by frequent fires.This species is also a keystone species as it scatter-hoards (by burying) seeds (Midgley and Anderson 2005) and pollinates flowers (for example, Letten and Midgley 2009; Turner et al. 2011). It may even be dependent on these resources. For instance, Fleming and Nicholson (2002) noted how breeding and population numbers depended on access to rodent-pollinated Protea humiflora. As up to 76% of seed caches contain just one seed, suggesting that scatter-hoarding may have evolved as an anti-pilfering strategy (Rusch et al. 2013), Cape Spiny Mice may help sustain landscape heterogeneity.
