ELK 101
Are Elk Gardeners?
PHOTO: Dawn Y. Wilson
by Clayton Elmore
Though you won’t see elk wearing sunhats and using spades and rakes on a hot summer’s day, they play a vital role in helping plants grow through a process called “zoochory” aka seed dispersal via animal. An elk with a green thumb can spread seeds in three different ways.
The first is known as “epizoochory,” which occurs when an elk walks through an area with plants and fungi, picking up seeds and spores as its coat brushes up against vegetation. The seeds hitch a ride and eventually fall off to sprout somewhere along the elk’s journey.
A second is “endozoochory,” the passing of seeds through an animal’s digestive tract. Researchers in Oregon collected seeds from fecal samples of elk, deer and cattle, then planted them in pots with soil. They found a higher variety of both native and non-native plants sprouted out of elk scat than that of deer and cattle. With elk commonly moving over half a dozen miles in a day as they browse, seeds can be spread far and wide through these means.
If an elk dies before digesting seeds, it doesn’t always mean they die with the elk. This is because the carcass of the dead elk becomes subject to predators and scavengers who feast upon it, in turn ingesting parts of the elk’s digestive tract which contain the seeds. The scrappy seeds then go through another round of digestion in the new host’s body and come out in their scat. This is known as secondary seed dispersal, or “diploendozoochory.”
Although elk can disperse invasive weeds through these different routes, research shows humans are the biggest contributor to the spread of noxious plants like cheatgrass, especially alongside roads and trails. Do your part by washing your vehicles, pets, boots and clothing before and after visits to public and private land to help reduce the threat to wildlife created by noxious weeds.
