AUTHORS: Joshua Angell, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Jeffrey Foster, Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, Northern Arizona University; Aron Katz, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ERDC-CERL & Department of Entomology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Jinelle Sperry, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ERDC-CERL & Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
ABSTRACT: Grassland bird populations are in steeper decline than any other avian group in North America. These declines are primarily caused by the loss of suitable habitat and degradation in the quality of remaining habitat. As such, it is critical to understand how different factors of current grassland habitats impact the birds within them. For nesting birds, one of the most important aspects of their breeding habitat is its ability to provide suitable food resources for their young in the nest. We utilized DNA metabarcoding to determine the diets that have been provisioned to grasshopper sparrow nestlings with fecal samples collected at Fort McCoy, WI. Orthoptera, Lepidoptera, and Hemiptera were the most prevalent arthropod orders detected across all samples, while Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Coleoptera were provisioned proportionally less compared to environmental availability. Additionally, we examined spatial and temporal trends of provisioned diet to explore what influences the foraging ecology of grasshopper sparrows. This study provides insights into how grassland habitats support breeding birds and evaluates fecal DNA metabarcoding as a potential tool to assess habitat quality for threatened and endangered species in the future.
