Kouete M T, Blackburn D C
California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA.
Department of Natural History, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
Integr Org Biol. 2019 Dec 31;2(1):obz035. doi: 10.1093/iob/obz035. eCollection 2020.
Trophic interactions among fossorial vertebrates remain poorly explored in tropical ecosystems. While caecilian species can co-occur, whether and how sympatric species partition dietary or other resources are largely unknown. Based on specimens collected during field surveys in southern Cameroon, we conducted a dietary analysis of two co-occurring caecilian species, and . We find a negligible overlap in the adult diets of these two species. Earthworms dominated the diet of adult , whereas we found that mole crickets were the most frequent prey items in adult . The dietary breadth of adult is smaller than that of , which consumes a variety of hard-bodied prey including mole crickets, cockroaches, beetles, and crabs. Juvenile diets were similar between these species and mostly contained earthworms and ants. We did not detect significant ontogenetic dietary shifts in either species, though adults generally consumed a broader diversity of prey. As adults, and may partition prey categories by consuming soft-bodied and hard-bodied prey, respectively. Because most caecilians are likely opportunistic predators, we expect that sympatric species partition dietary resources either by preference for different soil layers or ability to consume different prey categories.
在热带生态系统中，穴居脊椎动物之间的营养相互作用仍未得到充分研究。虽然蚓螈物种可以共存，但同域分布的物种是否以及如何划分食物或其他资源在很大程度上尚不清楚。基于在喀麦隆南部实地调查期间收集的标本，我们对两种共存的蚓螈物种—— 和 进行了饮食分析。我们发现这两种物种的成年个体饮食重叠可以忽略不计。蚯蚓在成年 的饮食中占主导地位，而我们发现蝼蛄是成年 最常见的猎物。成年 的饮食广度小于 ， 食用包括蝼蛄、蟑螂、甲虫和螃蟹在内的各种硬体猎物。这些物种的幼体饮食相似，主要包含蚯蚓和蚂蚁。我们在这两个物种中均未检测到显著的个体发育饮食转变，尽管成年个体通常食用更广泛多样的猎物。作为成年个体， 和 可能分别通过食用软体猎物和硬体猎物来划分猎物类别。由于大多数蚓螈可能是机会主义捕食者，我们预计同域分布的物种通过对不同土壤层的偏好或食用不同猎物类别的能力来划分饮食资源。
