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      Living in human-modified landscapes narrows the dietary niche of a specialised mammalian scavenger

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          Abstract

          Anthropogenic impacts on carnivores can be complex, posing numerous threats to many species, yet also benefits to those able to exploit certain resources. This balancing act is particularly precarious for those adapters that exploit dietary resources provided by humans, but still require other resources only available in native habitat. Here we measure the dietary niche of one such species, the Tasmanian devil ( Sarcophilus harrisii), a specialised mammalian scavenger, across an anthropogenic habitat gradient stretching from cleared pasture to undisturbed rainforest. Populations inhabiting areas of greater disturbance showed restricted dietary niches, suggesting that all individuals fed on similar food items, even within regenerated native forest. Populations in undisturbed rainforest habitats had comparatively broad diets and showed evidence of niche partitioning by body size, which may reduce intraspecific competition. Despite the potential benefits of reliable access to high-quality food items in anthropogenically-modified habitats, the constrained niches we observed may be harmful, indicating altered behaviours and potentially increasing the rate of fights between individuals over food. This is of particular concern for a species at risk of extinction due to a deadly cancer primarily transmitted through aggressive interactions. The lack of diversity in devil diets within regenerated native forest compared to those in old-growth rainforest also indicates the conservation value of the latter for both the devil and the species which they consume.

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          Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0

          Improving the reproducibility of biomedical research is a major challenge. Transparent and accurate reporting is vital to this process; it allows readers to assess the reliability of the findings and repeat or build upon the work of other researchers. The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) were developed in 2010 to help authors and journals identify the minimum information necessary to report in publications describing in vivo experiments. Despite widespread endorsement by the scientific community, the impact of ARRIVE on the transparency of reporting in animal research publications has been limited. We have revised the ARRIVE guidelines to update them and facilitate their use in practice. The revised guidelines are published alongside this paper. This explanation and elaboration document was developed as part of the revision. It provides further information about each of the 21 items in ARRIVE 2.0, including the rationale and supporting evidence for their inclusion in the guidelines, elaboration of details to report, and examples of good reporting from the published literature. This document also covers advice and best practice in the design and conduct of animal studies to support researchers in improving standards from the start of the experimental design process through to publication.
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            Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Biodiversity

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              Land Use and Avian Species Diversity Along an Urban Gradient

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                annacllewis@gmail.com
                Journal
                Sci Rep
                Sci Rep
                Scientific Reports
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2045-2322
                3 March 2023
                3 March 2023
                2023
                : 13
                : 3582
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.1005.4, ISNI 0000 0004 4902 0432, Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, , University of New South Wales, ; Sydney, NSW Australia
                [2 ]GRID grid.1005.4, ISNI 0000 0004 4902 0432, Centre for Marine Science and Innovation, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, , University of New South Wales, ; Sydney, NSW Australia
                [3 ]GRID grid.1013.3, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 834X, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, , The University of Sydney, ; Sydney, NSW Australia
                [4 ]The Carnivore Conservancy, Ulverstone, TAS Australia
                Article
                30490
                10.1038/s41598-023-30490-6
                9984462
                36869089
                8e340aec-7ab5-44a0-9cc7-14931832a051
                © The Author(s) 2023

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 14 September 2022
                : 24 February 2023
                Funding
                Funded by: The Carnivore Conservancy
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100020863, Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Trust;
                Award ID: RG161707
                Categories
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                © The Author(s) 2023

                Uncategorized
                ecology,stable isotope analysis
                Uncategorized
                ecology, stable isotope analysis

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