Evaluation of fecal metabarcoding for studying the diets of sympatric dusky salamanders (Desmognathus)

Amphibian diet studies often rely on visual identification of prey obtained through forced regurgitation or dissection. These approaches are somewhat invasive and often lack taxonomic specificity, which can discourage diet studies involving at-risk species and limit fine-scale investigations of diet composition. Here, we employ and assess a non-invasive molecular technique to characterize the diets of three co-occurring stream-dwelling salamander species (Desmognathus ocoee, Desmognathus monticola, and Desmognathus quadramaculatus) and investigate possible dietary partitioning within and among species. We used DNA metabarcoding to classify the arthropod prey communities from fecal samples of field-collected salamanders and investigated associations with predator species and snout-vent length (SVL). Of 200 salamanders captured and held for 24 hrs, 38 (19%) produced fecal samples containing arthropod DNA. We identified 53 prey taxa, of which 27 we could classify to species, 12 to genus, 1..., ,