Foraging ecology of African wolves (Canis lupaster) and its implications for the conservation of Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis)

African wolves (AWs) are sympatric with endangered Ethiopian wolves (EWs) in parts of their range. Scat analysis have suggested dietary overlap between AWs and EWs, raising the potential for exploitative competition, and a possible conservation threat to EWs. However, in contrast to the well-studied EW, the foraging ecology of AWs remains poorly characterized. Accordingly, we studied the foraging ecology of radio-collared AWs (n = 11 individuals) at two localities with varying levels of anthropogenic disturbance in the Ethiopian Highlands, the Guassa-Menz Community Conservation Area (GMCCA) and Borena-Saynt National Park (BSNP), accumulating 845h of focal observation across 2,856 feeding events. We also monitored rodent abundance and rodent trapping activity by local farmers who experience conflict with AWs. The AW diet consisted largely of rodents (22.0%), insects (24.8%), and goats and sheep (24.3%). The overall foraging success on live rodents (proportion of successful foraging attem...

非洲狼（African wolves, AWs）在其部分分布范围内与濒危的埃塞俄比亚狼（Ethiopian wolves, EWs）存在同域分布。粪便分析结果显示二者存在食性重叠，这提示两者可能存在利用性竞争，进而对埃塞俄比亚狼构成潜在的保护威胁。然而，与已被充分研究的埃塞俄比亚狼不同，非洲狼的觅食生态特征仍未得到充分阐明。据此，我们在埃塞俄比亚高地两处受人为干扰程度存在差异的区域，对佩戴无线电项圈的非洲狼（共11只个体）开展了觅食生态学研究，这两个区域分别为古萨-门茨社区保护区（Guassa-Menz Community Conservation Area, GMCCA）与博雷纳-桑特国家公园（Borena-Saynt National Park, BSNP），累计完成845小时的焦点观察，记录到2856次觅食事件。我们同时监测了啮齿动物种群丰度，并记录了与非洲狼存在人兽冲突的当地农户的啮齿动物诱捕活动。非洲狼的食性主要由啮齿动物（22.0%）、昆虫（24.8%）以及山羊和绵羊（24.3%）构成。对活体啮齿动物的整体觅食成功率（成功觅食尝试占比……