Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator
1. Variation in predator diet is a critical aspect of food web stability, health, and population dynamics of predator/ prey communities. Quantifying diet, particularly among cryptic species, is extremely challenging, however, and differentiation between demographic subsets of populations is often ov...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7381573 2023-05-15T13:28:15+02:00 Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator Moorhouse‐Gann, Rosemary J. Kean, Eleanor F. Parry, Gareth Valladares, Sonia Chadwick, Elizabeth A. 2020-05-27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381573/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32724521 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6375 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381573/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32724521 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6375 © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Ecol Evol Original Research Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6375 2020-08-02T00:28:42Z 1. Variation in predator diet is a critical aspect of food web stability, health, and population dynamics of predator/ prey communities. Quantifying diet, particularly among cryptic species, is extremely challenging, however, and differentiation between demographic subsets of populations is often overlooked. 2. We used prey remains and data taken postmortem from otter Lutra lutra to determine the extent to which dietary variation in a top predator was associated with biotic, spatial, and temporal factors. 3. Biotic data (e.g., sex, weight, and length) and stomach contents were taken from 610 otters found dead across England and Wales between 1994 and 2010. Prey remains were identified to species where possible, using published keys and reference materials. Multi‐model inference followed by model prediction was applied to test for and visualize the nature of associations. 4. Evidence for widespread decline in the consumption of eels (Anguilla anguilla) reflected known eel population declines. An association between eel consumption and otter body condition suggested negative consequences for otter nutrition. Consumption of Cottus gobio and stickleback spp. increased, but was unlikely to compensate (there was no association with body condition). More otters with empty stomachs were found over time. Otter sex, body length, and age‐class were important biotic predictors of the prey species found, and season, region, and distance from the coast were important abiotic predictors. 5. Our study is unique in its multivariate nature, broad spatial scale, and long‐term dataset. Inclusion of biotic data allowed us to reveal important differences in costs and benefits of different prey types, and differences between demographic subsets of the population, overlaid on spatial and temporal variation. Such complexities in otter diet are likely to be paralleled in other predators, and detailed characterization of diet should not be overlooked in efforts to conserve wild populations. Text Anguilla anguilla Lutra lutra PubMed Central (PMC) Ecology and Evolution 10 13 6395 6408 |
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Original Research Moorhouse‐Gann, Rosemary J. Kean, Eleanor F. Parry, Gareth Valladares, Sonia Chadwick, Elizabeth A. Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
topic_facet |
Original Research |
description |
1. Variation in predator diet is a critical aspect of food web stability, health, and population dynamics of predator/ prey communities. Quantifying diet, particularly among cryptic species, is extremely challenging, however, and differentiation between demographic subsets of populations is often overlooked. 2. We used prey remains and data taken postmortem from otter Lutra lutra to determine the extent to which dietary variation in a top predator was associated with biotic, spatial, and temporal factors. 3. Biotic data (e.g., sex, weight, and length) and stomach contents were taken from 610 otters found dead across England and Wales between 1994 and 2010. Prey remains were identified to species where possible, using published keys and reference materials. Multi‐model inference followed by model prediction was applied to test for and visualize the nature of associations. 4. Evidence for widespread decline in the consumption of eels (Anguilla anguilla) reflected known eel population declines. An association between eel consumption and otter body condition suggested negative consequences for otter nutrition. Consumption of Cottus gobio and stickleback spp. increased, but was unlikely to compensate (there was no association with body condition). More otters with empty stomachs were found over time. Otter sex, body length, and age‐class were important biotic predictors of the prey species found, and season, region, and distance from the coast were important abiotic predictors. 5. Our study is unique in its multivariate nature, broad spatial scale, and long‐term dataset. Inclusion of biotic data allowed us to reveal important differences in costs and benefits of different prey types, and differences between demographic subsets of the population, overlaid on spatial and temporal variation. Such complexities in otter diet are likely to be paralleled in other predators, and detailed characterization of diet should not be overlooked in efforts to conserve wild populations. |
format |
Text |
author |
Moorhouse‐Gann, Rosemary J. Kean, Eleanor F. Parry, Gareth Valladares, Sonia Chadwick, Elizabeth A. |
author_facet |
Moorhouse‐Gann, Rosemary J. Kean, Eleanor F. Parry, Gareth Valladares, Sonia Chadwick, Elizabeth A. |
author_sort |
Moorhouse‐Gann, Rosemary J. |
title |
Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
title_short |
Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
title_full |
Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
title_fullStr |
Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
title_full_unstemmed |
Dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
title_sort |
dietary complexity and hidden costs of prey switching in a generalist top predator |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381573/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32724521 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6375 |
genre |
Anguilla anguilla Lutra lutra |
genre_facet |
Anguilla anguilla Lutra lutra |
op_source |
Ecol Evol |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381573/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32724521 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6375 |
op_rights |
© 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6375 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
13 |
container_start_page |
6395 |
op_container_end_page |
6408 |
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1766403012528439296 |