Major Player - Long overlooked by forest managers, the flying squirrel is now emerging as an animal that is critical to the health of certain woodlands

National Wildlife, June-July, 2000 by Pete Taylor

A northern spotted owl swoops out of the treetops at twilight in an Oregon forest. Its target: a small rodent climbing a Douglas fir tree. The potential prey scrambles desperately from limb to limb, trying to escape. Finally it leaps and plummets straight to the ground with the owl in close pursuit. The animal lands gently-thanks to its unusual parachutelike body structure-and dashes to safety beneath some nearby vegetation.

"That was quite a chase," says U.S. Forest Service biologist Eric Forsman after observing the encounter. The near victim-a northern flying squirrel-was lucky, at least for the moment. Throughout much of the Pacific Northwest, flying squirrels represent about 50 percent of the diet of the spotted owl, a threatened species. That's why scientists such as Forsman, who are studying this predator-prey relationship, are spending more and more time in the woods these days. And the more they look, the more they realize that the flying squirrel is a major player in the Northwest's forest ecosystems. As a result, the animal is gaining increasing attention in forest-management decisions.

"We've begun to think of the flying squirrel as a keystone species in Pacific Northwest forests," says Andrew Carey, another U.S. Forest Service scientist based in Olympia, Washington. Such an animal is one that plays a disproportionately significant role in an ecosystem, far more than that suggested simply by the species' abundance. The flying squirrel is now considered a keystone species, observes Carey, not only because of its overwhelming importance as a food source for owls and other predators, but also because it facilitates the survival of fungi that live in vital symbiosis with trees. Carey's research indicates that forest managers can better evaluate their programs by tracking the size of flying squirrel populations.

Two species of flying squirrel inhabit the United States, with slightly overlapping geographical ranges. The northern flying squirrel ranges predominately across the northern states, including Alaska, often in cool, mountainous regions. The closely related southern flying squirrel populates much of the eastern third of the United States. Though common in many places, including some people's backyards, both species are rarely seen because they are nocturnal.

The creatures often build their nests in abandoned woodpecker holes and natural tree cavities, or sometimes on branches, high above the ground. Northern flying squirrels breed once a year; a typical litter size is three. At five or six weeks of age, the young squirrels attempt their first short "flights" outside. The youngsters need no instructions: They seem to know exactly what to do.

In spite of their name, flying squirrels glide rather than truly fly. Some individuals reportedly have soared as far as 150 yards. Their aerial abilities are made possible by a loose fold of skin, called the patagium, that spans from wrists to ankles. When a flying squirrel leaps from a tree, it extends its arms and legs outward, stretching the patagium to act like a parachute or glider wing. In flight, the animal is able to steer adeptly right or left to avoid obstacles. Before touchdown, usually on a tree trunk, the animal lifts its tail and veers sharply upward to bring its feet into landing position. Though flying squirrels spend much time in trees, they descend frequently to the ground in search of food.

"We've learned that in the Pacific Northwest flying squirrels feed primarily on truffles," says Carey. Truffles are underground fungi that bear the spores of so-called ectomycorrhizal fungi. Such fungi live in symbiosis with trees. The fungi form a coating on roots and probe the soil to help the trees take up nutrients and water. In return, the fungi receive sugars produced by the trees through photosynthesis.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi can be extraordinarily abundant in healthy forests, creating vast networks of fungal threads through the soil. During spring and fall, says Dan Luoma, an assistant professor of forest science at Oregon State University, a typical acre of Pacific Northwest woodlands may harbor anywhere from two to eight pounds of truffles. "They look like little potatoes," he says. "Typically they range from the size of a pea to a walnut, but I've seen them the size of a baking potato."

As they mature, truffles become increasingly odoriferous. A flying squirrel is able to find them by smell and then dig them out of the soil. The truffles' spores pass through the squirrel's digestive tract unharmed and wind up in the animal's fecal pellets, often conveniently close to tree roots that the fungi can then colonize.

"The number of flying squirrels tends to increase as the forest ages," says Carey. In southwestern Oregon, for example, second-growth forests generally support less than one flying squirrel for every two acres, while old-growth forests may support three or four times that many. This pattern may be related to differences in the amount of decomposing woody debris. Old-growth forests generally contain more debris than forests that have been harvested, and the debris is thought to aid truffles by supplying nutrients to the soil and retaining moisture during drought.