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DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food

Carnivores are currently colonizing cities where they were previously absent. These urban environments are novel ecosystems characterized by habitat degradation and fragmentation, availability of human food, and different prey assemblages than surrounding areas. Coyotes (Canis latrans) established a...

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Autores principales: Henger, Carol S., Hargous, Emily, Nagy, Christopher M., Weckel, Mark, Wultsch, Claudia, Krampis, Konstantinos, Duncan, Neil, Gormezano, Linda, Munshi-South, Jason
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9508883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36164598
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13788
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author Henger, Carol S.
Hargous, Emily
Nagy, Christopher M.
Weckel, Mark
Wultsch, Claudia
Krampis, Konstantinos
Duncan, Neil
Gormezano, Linda
Munshi-South, Jason
author_facet Henger, Carol S.
Hargous, Emily
Nagy, Christopher M.
Weckel, Mark
Wultsch, Claudia
Krampis, Konstantinos
Duncan, Neil
Gormezano, Linda
Munshi-South, Jason
author_sort Henger, Carol S.
collection PubMed
description Carnivores are currently colonizing cities where they were previously absent. These urban environments are novel ecosystems characterized by habitat degradation and fragmentation, availability of human food, and different prey assemblages than surrounding areas. Coyotes (Canis latrans) established a breeding population in New York City (NYC) over the last few decades, but their ecology within NYC is poorly understood. In this study, we used non-invasive scat sampling and DNA metabarcoding to profile vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant dietary items with the goal to compare the diets of urban coyotes to those inhabiting non-urban areas. We found that both urban and non-urban coyotes consumed a variety of plants and animals as well as human food. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) were an important food item for coyotes within and outside NYC. In contrast, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were mainly eaten by coyotes inhabiting non-urban areas. Domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) was the human food item found in most scats from both urban and non-urban coyotes. Domestic cats (Felis catus) were consumed by urban coyotes but were detected in only a small proportion of the scats (<5%), which differs markedly from high rates of cat depredation in some other cities. In addition, we compared our genetic metabarcoding analysis to a morphological analysis of the same scat samples. We found that the detection similarity between the two methods was low and it varied depending on the type of diet item.
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spelling pubmed-95088832022-09-25 DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food Henger, Carol S. Hargous, Emily Nagy, Christopher M. Weckel, Mark Wultsch, Claudia Krampis, Konstantinos Duncan, Neil Gormezano, Linda Munshi-South, Jason PeerJ Biodiversity Carnivores are currently colonizing cities where they were previously absent. These urban environments are novel ecosystems characterized by habitat degradation and fragmentation, availability of human food, and different prey assemblages than surrounding areas. Coyotes (Canis latrans) established a breeding population in New York City (NYC) over the last few decades, but their ecology within NYC is poorly understood. In this study, we used non-invasive scat sampling and DNA metabarcoding to profile vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant dietary items with the goal to compare the diets of urban coyotes to those inhabiting non-urban areas. We found that both urban and non-urban coyotes consumed a variety of plants and animals as well as human food. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) were an important food item for coyotes within and outside NYC. In contrast, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were mainly eaten by coyotes inhabiting non-urban areas. Domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) was the human food item found in most scats from both urban and non-urban coyotes. Domestic cats (Felis catus) were consumed by urban coyotes but were detected in only a small proportion of the scats (<5%), which differs markedly from high rates of cat depredation in some other cities. In addition, we compared our genetic metabarcoding analysis to a morphological analysis of the same scat samples. We found that the detection similarity between the two methods was low and it varied depending on the type of diet item. PeerJ Inc. 2022-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9508883/ /pubmed/36164598 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13788 Text en © 2022 Henger et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Henger, Carol S.
Hargous, Emily
Nagy, Christopher M.
Weckel, Mark
Wultsch, Claudia
Krampis, Konstantinos
Duncan, Neil
Gormezano, Linda
Munshi-South, Jason
DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
title DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
title_full DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
title_fullStr DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
title_full_unstemmed DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
title_short DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
title_sort dna metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in new york city consume wide variety of native prey species and human food
topic Biodiversity
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9508883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36164598
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13788
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