Food Webs最新文献

Protected lands are an important source of food, shelter, and reproductive opportunities for wildlife, especially in urban landscapes. When urban development abuts the edges of undisturbed ecosystems, synanthropic species can alter their foraging behaviors and movement to utilize human-supplemented resources throughout the urban-wild interface. Therefore, urban development on the edges of protected lands can have pronounced effects on animal movement and ecosystem functions. Iconic urban adaptive mesopredators such as northern raccoons (Procyon lotor) and Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana) often benefit from human-supplemented food sources such as unsecured garbage, pet food, and fresh water when available. To investigate how urban edges affect the movements of urban-adapted omnivores within conservation lands, we estimated home ranges and third-order resource selection of 27 raccoons and 12 opossums with GPS collars throughout the protected areas of northern Key Largo, FL, USA between April 2022–October 2023. The proportion of urban development in an individual's home range was the most influential factor associated with home range size, followed by species and sex. Individuals with greater proportions of residential neighborhoods and commercial areas in their home ranges exhibited smaller home ranges. Third-order resource selection functions identified both mesopredator species using residential and commercial land use areas more than they were available on the landscape. These results indicate that urban areas attract urban-adapted mesopredators from protected areas and result in smaller home ranges in the face of abundant human-derived food. Reduced home ranges on edges can support higher densities of animals, which may increase rates of disease transmission, especially when the urban borders support populations of feral domestic species. Shifting foraging behaviors from the protected areas to urban edges could have cascading downward effects if seed-dispersing roles are diluted. As urbanization increases and the distance between wild lands and human disturbance decreases, it is increasingly important to study the mechanisms of how urban development on the edges of protected areas affect the movement of wildlife.

We observed a group of Groove-billed Anis (Crotophaga sulcirostris) foraging and following a walking Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) in the Cojedes state (Central-western Venezuelan Llanos), using camera traps. We speculate that this behavior might be a mechanism to increase the birds’ foraging effectiveness since the number of prey caught when foraging along with the anteater tended to be high. Commensalism is relatively common in nature, but not easy to observe directly among Neotropical mammals and birds, due to their secretive and cryptic behaviors. Interactions between anis and anteaters had not been previously documented, so this is the first substantiated record of groove-billed anis foraging in association with an anteater. The expansion of camera trap networks in the tropics will likely increase our understanding and observations of commensal foraging behavior among diverse mammalian and avian taxa.

Most plant-bird interaction research employing complex ecological networks focuses on pollination and seed dispersal interactions. However, birds and plants are immersed in a great variety and complexity of direct and indirect relationships. Therefore, the use of multilayer networks (i.e., species interaction networks involving different types of interactions) could provide new insights into the ecological and coevolutionary dynamics of plant-bird relationships. Here, we used a multilayer network approach to determine how a bird-plant interaction network involving different types of interactions (i.e., foraging for invertebrates on plants, frugivory, nectarivory, and perching) is organized in a peri-urban Mexican cloud forest. Moreover, we added information about the interactive roles of the winter migratory and resident birds in the multilayer network. In general, we found that the bird-plant multilayer network exhibits modular but a non-nested structure. We also observed that interactions involving perching and foraging for invertebrates on plants are more frequent than frugivory and nectarivory. Moreover, just a small proportion of birds and plant species were important to the network organization and for connecting different interaction types. In this case, we observed that only two bird species, Cardellina pusilla (Parulidae) and Dumetella carolinesis (Mimidae), and the plant species Telanthophora grandifolia (Asteraceae) and Platanus mexicanus (Platanaceae) presented higher centrality values (i.e., an interactive role). Finally, we found that betweenness values (i.e., the number of times a species acts as a bridge along the shortest path between two species) and network structure's contributions are similar for both migratory and resident bird species. Our results highlight the importance of key interacting species that connect other interacting species for the preservation of community cohesion and to the persistence of species-rich assemblages.

Flies (Diptera) are among the most diverse groups of insects and are known to utilize various food resources, including plants, detritus, microbial tissues, and fresh and dead animal tissues. However, their feeding habits in the field remain poorly understood. We conducted a pilot study to apply stable nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) isotope techniques to examine the feeding habits of flies in a tropical rain forest in Sarawak, Malaysia. The fly samples comprised 13 families and >18 species. The results showed significant differences in nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios (δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C) among families and species within a family. The observed pattern is largely consistent with their known feeding habits; flies that use carcasses and carrion as diets (e.g., Sarcophagidae and Calliphoridae) have significantly higher δ¹⁵N values than those likely utilizing plant-based diets (e.g., Cecidomyiidae). There were significant differences in δ¹⁵N values among the six species of Calliphoridae, which is consistent with insect succession on carcasses. The differences in δ¹⁵N may be explained by the use of carrion at different stages of decomposition, because microbial decomposition can lead to the ¹⁵N enrichment. Tachinid flies had relatively low δ¹³C values, reflecting the use of lepidopterans as a host. This pilot study shows that the δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C values of flies provide insights into the diversity of feeding habits of fly communities, which could also serve as an indicator of resource availability in an entire ecosystem.

Individual diet specialization, where individuals within a population exhibit distinct dietary patterns, can be influenced by shifts in ecological opportunity. One underexplored avenue of research is in investigating whether individuals switch foraging strategies (e.g., shifting from herbivory to frugivory) when ecological opportunity provides a pulse of limiting resources, such as fleshy fruits. This study investigates the influence of seasonal frugivory on diet consistency and specialization among generalist herbivores, specifically the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), in southeastern Florida, USA. We hypothesized that increased frugivory during the wet season (June through November), coinciding with a resource pulse of fleshy fruits, leads to more inconsistent and specialized diets. Using radio telemetry to track individual tortoises and analyzing dissected fecal samples grouped into functional food categories, we applied Bayesian hierarchical modeling to examine diet consistency and specialization. Our results indicated that higher frugivory levels in the wet season correlate with greater diet inconsistency and specialization compared to the dry season. This pattern suggests that gopher tortoises may switch foraging strategies to exploit seasonal resource pulses of fleshy fruit, thus adopting more inconsistent and specialized diets. Additionally, important activities in the life history of the gopher tortoise, such as copulation, home range defense, and burrow construction, coincide with periods of increased fruit consumption and dietary inconsistency/specialization. Increased intake of carbohydrates and digestible energy from fleshy fruits may allow for more time in the tortoise's activity budget for these activities. Finally, by elucidating the relationship between seasonal frugivory and diet consistency/specialization, this research enhances our understanding of the mechanisms shaping ecological dynamics at the intraspecific level which can subsequently influence community-level interactions such as animal-mediated seed dispersal.