Abstract
Knowledge of a carnivore’s foraging behaviour is essential to understand its ecology. The pine marten Martes martes is commonly defined as an opportunistic generalist predator since its diet in Europe includes mammals, fruits, birds and invertebrates. Based on faecal analyses, we evaluated spring feeding habits and trophic niche breadth of the pine marten in a Mediterranean landscape on the island of Sardinia (Central Italy). The most important source of food for the pine marten was small mammals (mainly Apodemus sylvaticus, Mus musculus and Eliomys quercinus), accounting for 52% of the percent mean volume. Important secondary foods were invertebrates (mainly beetles and insect larvae) and birds (almost exclusively passerines), whereas large mammals, lagomorphs, reptiles and fruits made little contribution to the diet. The diet composition and the Levins’ index value suggest that the pine marten in Sardinia behaves as a facultative specialist predator, with a specialization towards small mammals.
Highlights
The pine marten (Martes martes L., 1758) is a me dium–sized mustelid found throughout much of Europe and northern and central Asia, from northern Portugal to western Siberia (Ruiz–González et al, 2013)
We provide the first description of the spring diet and trophic niche breadth for the pine mar ten in Sardinia and compare our results with those of Clevenger (1995) on the island of Mallorca
The marten diet was dominated by small mammals, which represented more than half of the total percent mean volume
Summary
The pine marten (Martes martes L., 1758) is a me dium–sized mustelid found throughout much of Europe and northern and central Asia, from northern Portugal to western Siberia (Ruiz–González et al, 2013). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Sardinian pine marten was described as a Martes martes latinorum subspecies It was distinguished from the nominal species by the leather–yellow patch on the throat and by a lighter dominating colour; it is the same size as a Italian form of the species, except for a slightly longer tail (Murgia et al, 1995). Colli et al (2011) described the genetic variability of Sardinian pine martens and differences between insular and Italian population. They reported two distinct clusters, corresponding to Sardinia and mainland Italy, and hypothesized the distinctiveness of the Sardinian population
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