Diet of a threatened endemic fox reveals variation in sandy beach resource use on California Channel Islands.

ABSTRACT: The coastal zone provides foraging opportunities for insular populations of terrestrial mammals, allowing for expanded habitat use, increased dietary breadth, and locally higher population densities. We examined the use of sandy beach resources by the threatened island fox (Urocyon littoralis) on the California Channel Islands using scat analysis, surveys of potential prey, beach habitat attributes, and stable isotope analysis. Consumption of beach invertebrates, primarily intertidal talitrid amphipods (Megalorchestia spp.) by island fox varied with abundance of these prey across sites. Distance-based linear modeling revealed that abundance of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) wrack, rather than beach physical attributes, explained the largest amount of variation in talitrid amphipod abund

SUBMITTER: Page HM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8553077 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature