Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jordan CuffORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Dietary variation among cohorts can have a major impact on how populations adapt to environmental variation. Although variation in diet between cohorts and across habitats has been studied in many taxa, this is not true for most birds, especially smaller generalist passerines whose feeding habits are predominantly cryptic. Here we used DNA metabarcoding with next-generation sequencing to assess spatio-temporal dietary variation among age and sex cohorts of the great tit Parus major, a model species in avian ecology. Most dietary species were rare but nevertheless collectively made up 30% of the diet, as expected of a generalist. Winter moth Operophtera brumata, a major focus in tit breeding phenology research, was the most prevalent dietary item, but the next ten most prevalent Lepidoterans were collectively four times more important. There was considerable variation in dietary richness and composition among seasons and years. In winter, natural plant and invertebrate species were extensively represented in the diet, despite the constant availability of supplemental food. Diet composition varied with woodland type: in conifer woodlands, birds fed on species adapted to conifer plantations, as expected, but they also fed on many species adapted to deciduous species. In winter, birds in conifers used peanut feeders more than they did in mixed woodlands where beech was more prevalent in the diet. In winter, first year birds consumed more invertebrate species than adults, presumably because they were less selective, and beech (Fagus) was almost twice as prevalent in first year diet. Our results suggest considerable spatio-temporal variation in diet and variation among cohorts, and provide insight into the diet of a key model species in avian ecology. Such variation is rarely considered even though it is likely to have important consequences for our understanding of how populations respond to environmental change.
Author(s): Coomes JR, Cuff JP, Reichert MS, Davidson GL, Symondson WOC, Quinn JL
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Ecology and Evolution
Year: 2025
Volume: 17
Issue: 7
Online publication date: 14/07/2025
Acceptance date: 29/05/2025
Date deposited: 16/06/2025
ISSN (electronic): 2045-7758
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71565
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.71565
Data Access Statement: Data available from the Dryad Digital Repository: DOI: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7h44j104p (Coomes et al., 2025).
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
