DNA metabarcoding reveals broad woodpecker diets in fire-maintained forests

Ecological disturbance is a key agent shaping the spatial and temporal landscape of food availability. In forests of western North America, disturbance from fire can lead to resource pulses of deadwood-associated arthropods that provide important prey for woodpeckers. Although the foraging strategies among woodpecker species often demonstrate pronounced differences, little is known about the ways in which woodpeckers exploit and partition prey in disturbed areas. In this study, we employed DNA metabarcoding to characterize and compare the arthropod diets of four woodpecker species in Washington and California, USA – Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus), Hairy Woodpecker (Dryobates villosus), Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), and White-headed Woodpecker (D. albolarvatus) – primarily using nestling fecal samples from burned forests 1–13 years post-fire. Successful sequencing from 78 samples revealed the presence of over 600 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) spanning 32 arthropo...