![]() The relative size of co-occurring carnivores contributes to these interactions. If sympatric carnivores use the same food resources, interactions can range from commensalism to mutualism to competition and predation. Mammalian carnivore species often co-occur, potentially creating complex interspecific interactions and trophic dynamics. ![]() Managing the impacts of carnivores is therefore important in both agricultural and conservation settings. In addition, human-carnivore conflicts are increasing globally due to actual or perceived impacts of carnivores on livestock. The impacts of introduced mammalian carnivores on native prey often exceed those of native carnivores, regularly causing their decline or extinction. Large- and medium-sized mammalian carnivores influence ecosystem structure and function worldwide through predation and intraguild competition. ![]() We also confirm that the third parties from which we obtained the data gave permission for us to share the data with interested researchers.įunding: The work presented was funded by the Biosecurity Division of the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries ( The funder had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript, other than in the form of two of the authors being employees within the organization.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Instead, we confirm that the data from the third parties will be openly and freely available to interested researchers from the senior author upon request. Therefore we have not provided contact information for these third parties, each of which contributed discrete portions of the body of data used. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedĭata Availability: The third parties that own the data underlying our paper are numerous. Received: NovemAccepted: JanuPublished: March 19, 2015Ĭopyright: © 2015 Davis et al. Crowther, University of Sydney, AUSTRALIA PLoS ONE 10(3):Īcademic Editor: Mathew S. (2015) Interspecific and Geographic Variation in the Diets of Sympatric Carnivores: Dingoes/Wild Dogs and Red Foxes in South-Eastern Australia. We provide checklists of taxa recorded in the diets of dingoes/wild dogs and foxes as a resource for managers and researchers wishing to understand the potential impacts of policy and management decisions on dingoes/wild dogs, foxes and the food resources they interact with.Ĭitation: Davis NE, Forsyth DM, Triggs B, Pascoe C, Benshemesh J, Robley A, et al. The substantial geographic variation in diet indicates that dingoes/wild dogs and foxes alter their diet in accordance with changing food availability. The occurrence of intraguild predation was asymmetrical dingoes/wild dogs consumed greater biomass of the smaller fox. Foxes consumed 6.1 times the number of individuals of threatened Critical Weight Range native mammal species than did dingoes/wild dogs. The key mammalian food items for foxes across all regions were European rabbit, sheep ( Ovis aries) and house mouse ( Mus musculus). The key mammalian food items for dingoes/wild dogs across all regions were black wallaby ( Wallabia bicolor), brushtail possum species ( Trichosurus spp.), common wombat ( Vombatus ursinus), sambar deer ( Rusa unicolor), cattle ( Bos taurus) and European rabbit ( Oryctolagus cuniculus). By contrast, dingoes/wild dogs more regularly consumed larger mammals, supporting the hypothesis that niche partitioning occurs on the basis of mammalian prey size. The diet of foxes was broader than dingoes/wild dogs in all but three regions, with the former usually containing more insects, reptiles and plant material. Diet overlap between dingoes/wild dogs and foxes varied among regions, from low to near complete overlap. ![]() The nine regions encompass a wide variety of ecosystems. We used the occurrence of food items in 5875 dingo/wild dog scats and 11,569 fox scats to evaluate interspecific and geographic differences in the diets of these species within nine regions of Victoria, south-eastern Australia. Dingoes/wild dogs ( Canis dingo/ familiaris) and red foxes ( Vulpes vulpes) are widespread carnivores in southern Australia and are controlled to reduce predation on domestic livestock and native fauna.
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