Carcass detection and consumption by facultative scavengers in forest ecosystem highlights the value of their ecosystem services.

ABSTRACT: Scavenging is a common feeding behavior that provides ecosystem services by removing potentially infectious waste from the landscape. The importance of facultative scavenging is often overlooked, but likely becomes especially important in ecosystems without obligate scavengers. Here, we investigated the ecological function of vertebrate facultative scavengers in removing ungulate carcasses from Japanese forests that lack obligate scavengers. We found that mammals detected carcasses first more often than birds, and that raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides) were the most frequent scavenger to first detect carcasses. However, we found no evidence of there being species that signal the location of carrion to other species via social cues. Instead, higher temperatures promoted earlier detect

SUBMITTER: Inagaki A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9525280 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature