| Titre : | Using soil from pellets of White Storks Ciconia ciconia to assess the number of earthworms (Lumbricidae) consumed as primary and secondary prey (2016) |
| Auteurs : | Grzegorz Orłowski, Auteur ; Zofia Książkiewicz-Parulska, Auteur ; Jerzy Karg, Auteur ; Marcin Bocheński, Auteur ; Leszek Jerzak, Auteur ; Karol Zub, Auteur |
| Type de document : | Article |
| Dans : | Ibis (158(3) July 2016) |
| Article en page(s) : | 587-597 |
| Langues: | Anglais |
| Mots-clés: | Agriculture ; Food ; Lumbricidae ; bird diet ; chaetae ; digestion ; pellet analysis |
| Résumé : | Earthworms (Oligochaeta, Lumbricidae) form a significant component of the food web and are the staple diet of many higher-trophic-level predators, such as invertebrate-feeding birds and mammals. Their almost complete digestion in the predator's gut hampers their detection or quantification in faeces or pellets except through labour-intensive microscopic examination. As a result, the evaluation of earthworms as a component of diet has been neglected in most studies based on pellet analysis. We assess whether the earthworm component of the diet of White Storks Ciconia ciconia can be estimated reliably by measuring soil mass in pellets, and whether the fact that White Storks also consume European Moles Talpa europaea (themselves consumers of earthworms) affects this relationship. We found a significantly higher density of earthworm chaetae, but less soil material, in pellets containing the remains of Moles. This may indicate the secondary origin of some chaetae from the intestines of the ingested Moles. There was a strong relationship and close fit between the number of earthworm chaetae and the mass of soil (material |
| En ligne : | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ibi.12375/abstract |



