Data from: Apex predators and the facilitation of resource partitioning among mesopredators ...
Apex predators may influence carnivore communities through the suppression of competitively dominant mesopredators, however they also provide carrion subsidies that could influence foraging and competition among sympatric mesopredators when small prey is scarce. We assessed coyote Canis latrans and...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dryad
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b273t https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.b273t |
| Summary: | Apex predators may influence carnivore communities through the suppression of competitively dominant mesopredators, however they also provide carrion subsidies that could influence foraging and competition among sympatric mesopredators when small prey is scarce. We assessed coyote Canis latrans and red fox Vulpes vulpes winter diet overlap and composition from scats collected in two study areas with >3-fold difference in grey wolf Canis lupus density due to a wolf control program. We hypothesized that differences in diet composition would be driven by the use of carrion, and tested whether 1) apex predators facilitate resource overlap, or 2) apex predators facilitate resource partitioning. We estimated the available biomass of snowshoe hares and voles based on pellet density and vole capture rates in each study area. We used molecular analysis to confirm species identification of predator scats, and used microscopic evaluation of prey remains to analyze diet composition of 471 coyote and fox scats. ... : Coyote and red fox scat contentsThis file contains data of percent volume of items found in 471 coyote and red fox scats collected in interior Alaska, winter 2013-2014. "Scat number" refers to the sample number, "Study area" refers to the study area from which the scat was collected, "Species" refers to the species that deposited the scat, as determined by molecular analyses. The remaining categories and values refer to the percent volume of each item found in that scat as determined by visual inspection of contents and microscopic evaluation of hair fragments. See methods of Sivy et al. 2017 for further details.scat.xlsx ... |
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