Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, P.O. Box Drawer E, Aiken, South Carolina, 29802, USA.
University of Georgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, P.O. Box Drawer E, Aiken, South Carolina, 29802, USA.
Ecology. 2017 Sep;98(9):2413-2424. doi: 10.1002/ecy.1930.
Carrion is a valuable nutrient resource used by a diversity of vertebrates across the globe. However, vertebrate scavenging ecology remains an understudied area of science, especially in regards to how biotic and abiotic factors influence scavenging community composition. Here we elucidate how fundamental biotic and abiotic factors interact to modulate the efficiency and composition of vertebrate scavengers by investigating scavenging dynamics across a large gradient in carcass sizes and habitat types representative of many temperate ecosystems, as well as between two seasons reflecting differences in invertebrate activity. We found carcass size and season influenced carcass fate and persistence, as well as the richness and composition of vertebrate scavenger communities utilizing carrion resources. Species richness, which increased as carcass size increased and was higher during the cool season, had a significant effect on carcass persistence. In addition, habitat type influenced carcass detection times by vertebrates, and we observed relatively distinct scavenging communities associated with carcasses of differing sizes. This research highlights a pervasive limitation to the interpretation of results of previous studies as research failing to incorporate carcass size and habitat type could result in the over or underrepresentation of vertebrate scavengers in food web dynamics.
腐肉是一种有价值的营养资源，被全球各地的多种脊椎动物所利用。然而，脊椎动物的食腐生态学仍然是一个研究不足的科学领域，特别是关于生物和非生物因素如何影响食腐动物群落的组成。在这里，我们通过调查在代表许多温带生态系统的大范围内的尸体大小和栖息地类型的变化以及两个季节之间的变化，阐明了基本的生物和非生物因素如何相互作用来调节脊椎动物食腐动物的效率和组成，以反映无脊椎动物活动的差异。我们发现，尸体大小和季节影响了尸体的命运和持久性，以及利用腐肉资源的脊椎动物食腐动物群落的丰富度和组成。物种丰富度随着尸体大小的增加而增加，在凉爽的季节更高，对尸体的持久性有显著影响。此外，栖息地类型影响了脊椎动物对尸体的检测时间，我们观察到与不同大小的尸体相关的相对独特的食腐动物群落。这项研究强调了对以往研究结果的解释存在普遍的局限性，因为研究未能将尸体大小和栖息地类型纳入其中，可能导致在食物网动态中对脊椎动物食腐动物的过度或低估。
