From feces to data: a metabarcoding method for analyzing consumed and available prey in a bird-insect food web

Diets play a key role in understanding trophic interactions. Knowing the actual structure of food webs contributes greatly to our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The research of prey preferences of different predators requires knowledge not only of the prey consumed, but also of what is available.
In this study, we applied DNA metabarcoding to analyze the diet of 4 bird species (willow tits Poecile montanus, Siberian tits Poecile cinctus, great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus) by using the feces of nestlings. The availability of their assumed prey (Lepidoptera) was determined from feces of larvae (frass) collected from the main foraging habitat, birch (Betula spp.) canopy. We identified 53 prey species from the nestling feces, of which 11 (21%) were also detected from the frass samples (8 lepidopterans). Approximately 80% of identified prey species in the nestling feces represented lepidopterans, which is in line with the earlier studies on t...

捕食食谱在解析营养相互作用中发挥关键作用。明晰食物网的真实结构，对于深化我们对生物多样性与生态系统功能的认知具有重要意义。探究不同捕食者的猎物偏好，不仅需要明确其取食的猎物类群，还需掌握环境中可获取的猎物资源。
本研究采用DNA宏条形码（DNA metabarcoding）技术，以雏鸟粪便为实验材料，对4种鸟类的捕食食谱展开分析，这4种鸟类分别为柳山雀（*Poecile montanus*）、西伯利亚山雀（*Poecile cinctus*）、大山雀（*Parus major*）及蓝山雀（*Cyanistes caeruleus*）。研究通过采集其主要觅食生境——桦属（*Betula* spp.）林冠层的幼虫虫粪（frass），确定了这些鸟类的假定猎物鳞翅目（Lepidoptera）的可获取类群。
研究人员从雏鸟粪便样本中鉴定出53种猎物类群，其中11种（占比21%）同时在幼虫虫粪样本中被检出，这11类猎物包含8种鳞翅目昆虫。
雏鸟粪便中鉴定出的猎物类群约80%隶属于鳞翅目，该结果与此前针对...