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      Variation in White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) diet along a climatic gradient and across rural-to-urban landscapes in North Africa

       
      International Journal of Biometeorology
      Springer Science and Business Media LLC

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          Abstract

          Assessing diet composition of White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) breeding under North African conditions provides key information to understanding its trophic niche for conservation purpose. Since, climate controls productivities of foraging habitats and thus food availability for predators, this study examines how Storks' diet parameters varied following a climate gradient along with rural-to-urban landscapes in north-eastern Algeria. Feeding strategies to cope with severe conditions were discussed in light of climate aridity and urbanization and how these influence reproduction, population dynamics and distribution. While invertebrate prey accounted for 94 % of ingested individuals, the biomass intake was dominated by chicken remains scavenged from rubbish dumps (67 %) and small mammals (14 %). Generalized linear models revealed that prey numbers varied significantly between climatic regions and landscapes types, but no significant differences were observed for other dietary parameters, including prey biomass. The study showed high dietary similarity between study climates and landscapes, mainly among rural and urban colonies located in semi-arid and sub-humid areas, which differed from those in suburban and arid climate. Rarefaction and extrapolation curves indicated that prey species richness in White Stork diets was expected to be higher in urban colonies located in sub-humid climate. Despite low prey species diversity in arid regions, the White Stork demonstrates a broad trophic niche, which could be due to supplementary feeding from human refuse. This study suggests that regardless of the climate or landscape, White Storks ensure a constant food intake, despite prey biomass fluctuations, by adapting their diet. Foraging in diverse habitats, including trash dumps, ensures a sufficiently balanced diet to meet nutritional requirements.

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          Most cited references46

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          A new statistical approach for assessing similarity of species composition with incidence and abundance data

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            The Effects of Urban Patterns on Ecosystem Function

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              Estimating species richness using the jackknife procedure.

              An exact expression is given for the jackknife estimate of the number of species in a community and for the variance of this number when quadrat sampling procedures are used. The jackknife estimate is a function of the number of species that occur in one and only one quadrat. The variance of the number of species can be constructed, as can approximate two-sided confidence intervals. The behavior of the jackknife estimate, as affected by quadrat size, sample size and sampling area, is investigated by simulation.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                International Journal of Biometeorology
                Int J Biometeorol
                Springer Science and Business Media LLC
                0020-7128
                1432-1254
                March 2017
                August 31 2016
                March 2017
                : 61
                : 3
                : 549-564
                Article
                10.1007/s00484-016-1232-x
                27582284
                7748478b-c87f-4885-87de-2f850c376f4d
                © 2017

                http://www.springer.com/tdm

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