Dietary compositions and their seasonal shifts in Japanese resident birds, estimated from the analysis of volunteer monitoring data.

ABSTRACT: Determining the composition of a bird's diet and its seasonal shifts are fundamental for understanding the ecology and ecological functions of a species. Various methods have been used to estimate the dietary compositions of birds, which have their own advantages and disadvantages. In this study, we examined the possibility of using long-term volunteer monitoring data as the source of dietary information for 15 resident bird species in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The data were collected from field observations reported by volunteers of regional naturalist groups. Based on these monitoring data, we calculated the monthly dietary composition of each bird species directly, and we also estimated unidentified items within the reported foraging episodes using Bayesian models that contained addit

SUBMITTER: Yoshikawa T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4344244 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature