期刊
JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY
卷 262, 期 -, 页码 405-411出版社
WILEY
DOI: 10.1017/S0952836903004783
关键词
felids; canids; scats; rodents; energetics
类别
Many small carnivores include rodents in their diet. However, due to varying evolutionary strategies, carnivores differ in their metabolism and energy requirements. Hence, comparisons of diet between carnivores Would be more meaningful if the body size and energetics of the predators are considered. The diet of three small carnivores (jungle cat Felis chaus; caracal Caracal caracal; golden jackal Canis aureus) from a semi-arid part of western India was studied through scat analysis, and the importance of rodents in their diet was estimated as a percentage of their daily energy requirement. Although percentage frequency in seats and biomass consumption showed rodents to be equally important to all three carnivores, energy calculations showed that rodents were more important as prey for the felids than the jackal. Up to 70% of the daily metabolizable energy in felids was obtained from rodents, as compared to 45% in the jackal. Rodents are generally viewed as pests, and their importance to the small carnivore community is overlooked. Change in land use over the decades in the arid/semi-arid tract of western India has led to several adverse as well as favourable modifications in rodent assemblages, which could influence the persistence of species like the caracal and jungle cat in this region, that largely depend on rodents for their Survival.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据