Role of Fossorial Animals in Community Structure and Energetics of Pacific Mediterranean Ecosystems

Recent reviews reveal that fossorial animals (those both foraging and sheltering underground) have influential, or even keystone, roles in the dynamics of grassland, savanna, and mediterranean scrub ecosystems (Andersen 1987; Huntly and Inouye 1988; Contreras and McNab 1990). Fossorial animals include termites and other insects, insectivorous mammals such as moles, and members of several families of herbivorous rodents, including the Geomyidae of North America and the Octodontidae of Chile (Nevo 1979; Andersen 1987).