Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is making a comeback in many habitats in central Europe, where it has been once extirpated. Although densities are still low to moderate, this comeback already raises management concerns. In Anatolia, the gray wolf is one of the most common predator species occupying almo...
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ftdatacite:10.17169/refubium-25307 2023-05-15T15:50:05+02:00 Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter Mengüllüoğlu, Deniz İaslan, Eylül Emir, Hasan Berger, Anne 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-25307 https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/25537 unknown Freie Universität Berlin https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 https://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY Canis lupus predator-prey sus scrofa prey preferences livestock guarding dog population density ovis gmelinii anatolica human-wildlife conflict 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik590 Tiere Zoologie599 Mammalia Säugetiere Text article-journal Wissenschaftlicher Artikel ScholarlyArticle 2019 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.17169/refubium-25307 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is making a comeback in many habitats in central Europe, where it has been once extirpated. Although densities are still low to moderate, this comeback already raises management concerns. In Anatolia, the gray wolf is one of the most common predator species occupying almost all kind of habitats. Although its numbers were reduced in some parts of the country, it has never been extirpated and lived in sympatry with humans. In this study we investigated, for the first time, the winter diet of wolves in north-west Anatolia, where a multispecies wild ungulate community occurs in sympatry with high density livestock. We selected two geographically close but different habitats (steppe and forest) with different wild prey availabilities and compositions. In both areas ungulate contribution to winter diet biomass was more than 90%. Wolf pack size (four to eight wolves) were higher in the study area where livestock numbers and human disturbance were lower and wild prey were more available. In both study areas, wild boar (Sus scrofa) was the main and most preferred food item (Chesson’s α = 0.7 − 0.9) and it occurred at higher density where wolf pack size was smaller. We could not find a high preference (Chesson’s α = 0.3) and high winter predation pressure on the reintroduced Anatolian wild sheep (Ovis gmelinii anatolica) population that occurs in the study area covered by steppe vegetation. Contribution of livestock and food categories other than wild ungulates to wolf diet stayed low. Wolves can help mitigate human-wildlife conflict regulating wild boar numbers, the most common conflict-causing ungulate species in Anatolia. Instead of managing wolf numbers in human dominated landscapes, we recommend reintroduction of wild ungulates to the areas where they became locally extinct and replaced by livestock. Text Canis lupus gray wolf DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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topic |
Canis lupus predator-prey sus scrofa prey preferences livestock guarding dog population density ovis gmelinii anatolica human-wildlife conflict 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik590 Tiere Zoologie599 Mammalia Säugetiere |
spellingShingle |
Canis lupus predator-prey sus scrofa prey preferences livestock guarding dog population density ovis gmelinii anatolica human-wildlife conflict 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik590 Tiere Zoologie599 Mammalia Säugetiere Mengüllüoğlu, Deniz İaslan, Eylül Emir, Hasan Berger, Anne Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter |
topic_facet |
Canis lupus predator-prey sus scrofa prey preferences livestock guarding dog population density ovis gmelinii anatolica human-wildlife conflict 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik590 Tiere Zoologie599 Mammalia Säugetiere |
description |
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is making a comeback in many habitats in central Europe, where it has been once extirpated. Although densities are still low to moderate, this comeback already raises management concerns. In Anatolia, the gray wolf is one of the most common predator species occupying almost all kind of habitats. Although its numbers were reduced in some parts of the country, it has never been extirpated and lived in sympatry with humans. In this study we investigated, for the first time, the winter diet of wolves in north-west Anatolia, where a multispecies wild ungulate community occurs in sympatry with high density livestock. We selected two geographically close but different habitats (steppe and forest) with different wild prey availabilities and compositions. In both areas ungulate contribution to winter diet biomass was more than 90%. Wolf pack size (four to eight wolves) were higher in the study area where livestock numbers and human disturbance were lower and wild prey were more available. In both study areas, wild boar (Sus scrofa) was the main and most preferred food item (Chesson’s α = 0.7 − 0.9) and it occurred at higher density where wolf pack size was smaller. We could not find a high preference (Chesson’s α = 0.3) and high winter predation pressure on the reintroduced Anatolian wild sheep (Ovis gmelinii anatolica) population that occurs in the study area covered by steppe vegetation. Contribution of livestock and food categories other than wild ungulates to wolf diet stayed low. Wolves can help mitigate human-wildlife conflict regulating wild boar numbers, the most common conflict-causing ungulate species in Anatolia. Instead of managing wolf numbers in human dominated landscapes, we recommend reintroduction of wild ungulates to the areas where they became locally extinct and replaced by livestock. |
format |
Text |
author |
Mengüllüoğlu, Deniz İaslan, Eylül Emir, Hasan Berger, Anne |
author_facet |
Mengüllüoğlu, Deniz İaslan, Eylül Emir, Hasan Berger, Anne |
author_sort |
Mengüllüoğlu, Deniz |
title |
Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter |
title_short |
Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter |
title_full |
Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter |
title_fullStr |
Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter |
title_full_unstemmed |
Diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern Anatolia during winter |
title_sort |
diet and wild ungulate preferences of wolves in northwestern anatolia during winter |
publisher |
Freie Universität Berlin |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-25307 https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/25537 |
genre |
Canis lupus gray wolf |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus gray wolf |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 https://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.17169/refubium-25307 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7446 |
_version_ |
1766385083982282752 |