Premium
Assessing the impact of introduced cats on island biodiversity by combining dietary and movement analysis
Author(s) -
Hervías S.,
Oppel S.,
Medina F. M.,
Pipa T.,
Díez A.,
Ramos J. A.,
Ruiz de Ybáñez R.,
Nogales M.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of zoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.915
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1469-7998
pISSN - 0952-8369
DOI - 10.1111/jzo.12082
Subject(s) - cats , predation , biology , wildlife , generalist and specialist species , range (aeronautics) , ecology , biodiversity , home range , seasonality , apex predator , invertebrate , feral cat , abundance (ecology) , habitat , zoology , felis catus , materials science , computer science , composite material , embedded system
Populations of feral (not owned by humans) and domestic cats F elis catus coexist in most inhabited islands, and they have similar impacts on native species. Feral cats are generally believed to vary their diet according to prey availability; however, no previous studies of diet have tested this hypothesis on insular ecosystems with a limited range of available prey. Because domestic cats kill prey independently of hunger, the spatial extent of their impact on wildlife will be influenced by home‐range size. In this study, we combined dietary information with cat movements to assess the impacts of feral and domestic cats on island biodiversity. We quantified the diet of cats from scat samples collected across one year and tested whether diet varies by season. The abundance of main prey categories was also estimated to document seasonal variation in prey availability for cats. Finally, we tracked domestic cats by global positioning system units in all four seasons to examine whether home‐range patterns varied seasonally. The diet of cats constituted three prey groups (rodents, birds and invertebrates), and the seasonal variation in consumption of each taxon matched the seasonal variation in prey availability, thus supporting the generalist behaviour of cats on oceanic islands. Roaming behaviour varied among individuals and across seasons, but could not be explained by availability of prey. Unconfined cats had larger home‐ranges than confined cats, but most domestic cats strayed <1 km from home. Thus, confinement of domestic cats might reduce the spatial extent of cat impact on native prey populations on oceanic islands.