Abstract
Abstract Dry dog food is a potential attractant for carnivores, but it is scarcely used in mesocarnivore studies. We tested its efficiency by placing 50 independent sampling stations consisting in trios of camera traps baited with either dry dog food and valerian extract and a control without any attractant. We obtained 84 independent contacts including 39 mesocarnivore sightings in 150 camera-night samples. Community composition estimates were affected by attractants: diversity was higher and dominance smaller when using dry dog food than when using valerian extract. Dry dog food elicited three times more contacts than control cameras (mean ± SE = 0.48 ± 0.04 vs 0.15 ± 0.02 contacts/camera). Our results suggest the potential efficiency of dry dog food as an alternative attractant, either alone or used in combination with other traditional inedible baits in mesocarnivore studies.
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