DeLong John P, Coblentz Kyle E, La Sorte Frank A, Uiterwaal Stella F
School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2024 Dec;291(2036):20242156. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.2156. Epub 2024 Dec 11.
Some predators depend heavily on one or a few prey types, and others have exceptionally broad diets. It is unclear how this diet variation arises. Here, we demonstrate a strong link between diet species richness and Shannon entropy of prey frequencies (a diet diversity spectrum) for a globally distributed group of apex predators-raptors. For many raptors, diet entropy is consistent with random sampling expectations given a lognormal distribution of abundances among prey species. Yet most species-rich diets often approach the maximum possible diet entropy, indicating an unexpected level of diet evenness that is not predicted by theory. Positioning along this diet diversity spectrum is linked to evolutionary history, the types of prey that are acceptable and the role of raptors as food web integrators through cross-habitat sampling. These results suggest that raptors may have a highly stabilizing effect on terrestrial food webs and play an important role in maintaining biodiversity.
一些捕食者严重依赖一种或几种猎物类型，而其他捕食者的食谱则异常广泛。目前尚不清楚这种饮食差异是如何产生的。在这里，我们展示了全球分布的顶级捕食者——猛禽群体的饮食物种丰富度与猎物频率的香农熵（饮食多样性谱）之间的紧密联系。对于许多猛禽来说，考虑到猎物物种丰度的对数正态分布，饮食熵与随机抽样预期一致。然而，大多数物种丰富的饮食往往接近最大可能的饮食熵，这表明存在理论未预测到的意外饮食均匀度水平。在这个饮食多样性谱上的定位与进化历史、可接受的猎物类型以及猛禽通过跨栖息地采样作为食物网整合者的作用有关。这些结果表明，猛禽可能对陆地食物网具有高度稳定作用，并在维持生物多样性方面发挥重要作用。
