  We present temperature-dependent scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements
on $La_{1-x}Ca_{x}MO_{3}$ ($x\sim0.33$) films with different degrees of biaxial
strain. A depletion in normalized conductance around the Fermi level is
observed both above and below the insulator-to-metal transition temperature
$T_{MI}$, for weakly as well as highly-strained films. This pseudogap-like
depletion globally narrows on cooling. The zero-bias conductance decreases on
cooling in the insulating phase, reaches a minimum close to $T_{MI}$ and
increases on cooling in the metallic phase, following the trend of macroscopic
conductivity. These results support a recently proposed scenario in which
dynamical short-range antiferromagnetic/charge order correlations play a
preeminent role in the transport properties of colossal magnetoresistive
manganites [R. Yu \textit{et al}., Phys. Rev. B \textbf{77}, 214434 (2008)].
