Dietary niche partitioning of three Sky Island Sceloporus lizards as revealed through DNA metabarcoding.

ABSTRACT: Lizard diets are highly diverse and have contributed to the diversification, biogeographical distributions, and evolution of novel traits across this global radiation. Many parts of a lizard's ecology-including habitat preferences, foraging modes, predation risks, interspecific competition, and thermal constraints, among others-interact to shape diets, and dietary niche partitioning simultaneously contributes to co-occurrence within communities. We used DNA metabarcoding of fecal samples to identify prey items in the diets of three sympatric Sceloporus lizards in the Madrean Sky Islands of Arizona, USA. We found evidence for dietary niche partitioning between interacting species concomitant with their respective ecologies. We also compared diet composition between populations to und

SUBMITTER: Westeen EP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10485322 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature