The geography of diet variation in Neotropical Carnivora

Abstract

1. Mammalian carnivores (order Carnivora) perform important regulatory functions in terrestrial food webs. Building a comprehensive knowledge of the dietary patterns of carnivorans and the factors determining such patterns is essential for improving our understanding of the role of carnivorans in ecosystem functioning. 2. In the Neotropics, there are 64 extant species of terrestrial Carnivora, but information on their trophic ecology is diffuse. We compiled and analysed the available quantitative dietary data for Neotropical carnivorans, aiming to detect patterns of intraspecific and interspecific dietary variation at a large geographical scale. 3. The resulting database encompasses information on trophic interactions of 37 native carnivoran species from six families across 14 countries. There are clear geographical biases towards southern Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, and a noticeable knowledge gap within the Amazon. Also, most studies are focused on canids and felids, especially Puma concolor, Panthera onca, Cerdocyon thous, Leopardus pardalis, and Chrysocyon brachyurus, whereas for 27 native species, we found no quantitative dietary information. 4. Neotropical carnivorans consume species from at least 651 genera of vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. We found clear species-specific dietary patterns and marked differences between Neotropical felids and canids. Although predators generally exhibit high levels of consistency in their diets regarding prey body mass, we detected significant intraspecific variation for all species analysed across study sites. 5. Body mass imposes strong constraints on prey use, but biogeographical differences in prey availability and human influence may drive the geographical variation we found. Overall, observed patterns show not only similarities with resource-use patterns found for carnivorans in other continents, such as nestedness driven by body mass, but also differences, such as high levels of frugivory and consumption of invertebrates by canids. Assessing resource-use patterns is

Dietary patterns of a versatile large carnivore, the puma (Puma concolor)

“…Although humans have had wide-ranging impacts on large parts of the puma range across the Americas, our analysis did not show any significant changes in puma diets through time, at least within the broad diet categories used in this analysis, despite large changes in land use in the Americas in the last century. In addition, human impacts on the environment did not appear to directly affect puma diets across categories, countering the hypothesis put forth in a recent study that suggested that puma consumption of large prey was related to levels of human influence (Cruz et al, 2022), although that study was limited to the neotropics. Our result is in line with previous research that reported that pumas continue to take large ungulates even with significant changes in human impacts on the landscape, including urban development (Robins et al, 2019), although research from the Santa Cruz Mountains in California found that pumas increased their predation rates and spent less time at kills in areas with a higher human footprint (Smith et al, 2015(Smith et al, , 2017, likely resulting in significant energetic costs.…”

“…Dietary plasticity is one mechanism that allows consumers to persist in wide‐ranging environments with variable amounts of disturbances. A recent analysis of carnivores in the neotropics found that pumas have among the greatest range of prey body mass in their diet (Cruz et al, 2022). In comparison, the jaguar, the other large felid in the Americas, is one of the species of felids exhibiting the least amount of variation in prey body mass (Cruz et al, 2022).…”

“…A recent analysis of carnivores in the neotropics found that pumas have among the greatest range of prey body mass in their diet (Cruz et al, 2022). In comparison, the jaguar, the other large felid in the Americas, is one of the species of felids exhibiting the least amount of variation in prey body mass (Cruz et al, 2022). Given the large differences in dietary flexibility, it is perhaps unsurprising that the jaguar has lost nearly 50% of its original range and is of greater conservation concern than the puma (Nielsen et al, 2015; Zeller, 2007).…”

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