Molecular tools reveal diets of insectivorous birds from predator fecal matter

Background/Question/Methods

Development of animal behavior and food web theories has been hindered by the difficulties of predicting and evaluating predator diet breadth and prey selection. I present the emerging, interdisciplinary field of ‘molecular scatology’ and describe a non-invasive application of molecular tools to detect arthropod prey in avian fecal matter to evaluate predator foraging. Mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase c subunit I genes were amplified from Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana) fecal material and sequenced to identify arthropod prey.

Results/Conclusions

Overall, prey from seven different families and five different orders were identified. Earlier methodologies including transforming amplicons into chemically competent Escherichia coli cells will be compared to more recent approaches of next-generation sequencing of amplicon libraries. I will further present the ecological implications of these data and suggest areas of future research including coupling prey identification with availability in the field to build reference databases and determine prey selection and preferential foraging by predators. Consistent methodological advancement will enable molecular scatology to identify ecosystem services provided by predators, develop ecological theory, and inform conservation efforts.