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In a Hyper-Arid Region Of See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318100547 Scavenging Diet of Brown-necked Raven Corvus ruficollis Lesson, 1830 (Aves: Corvidae) in a Hyper-arid Region of... Article in Acta Zoologica Bulgarica · June 2017 CITATION READS 1 130 6 authors, including: Belkacem Mohamed Faiza Marniche École Nationale Supérieure Agronomique Ecole Nationale Supérieure Vétérinaire d’Alger 2 PUBLICATIONS 1 CITATION 6 PUBLICATIONS 3 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Djamal edine Berrabah Felix Manuel Medina Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique an… Cabildo Insular de La Palma 6 PUBLICATIONS 1 CITATION 56 PUBLICATIONS 955 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Life Safe Islands for Seabirds View project Etude de l'avifaune dans les zones humides sahariennes View project All content following this page was uploaded by Felix Manuel Medina on 06 July 2017. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. ACTA ZOOLOGICA BULGARICA Terrestrial Ecology and Behaviour Acta zool. bulg., 69 (2), 2017: 239-248 Research Article Scavenging Diet of Brown-necked Raven Corvus ruficollis Lesson, 1830 (Aves: Corvidae) in a Hyper-arid Region of Central Algerian Sahara Mohamed Belkacem1*, Faiza Marniche2, Djamal edine Berrabah3, Felix Manuel Medina4, Samia Daoudi-Hacini1 & Salaheddine Doumandji1 1Department of Agricultural and Forest Zoology, National School of Agronomy, Avenue Hassen Badi, El-Harrach, 16200 Algiers, Algeria 2Laboratory of Zoology, National School of Veterinary, El-Alia, Algeria 3Scientific and Technic centre of research in Arid Regions, Biskra, Algeria 4Unidad de Medio Ambiente, Cabildo Insular de La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain Abstract: The diet of the brown-necked raven was studied analysing 175 pellets with 1047 prey items collected in an arid region of Central Algerian Sahara during both breeding and non-breeding seasons. The breed- ing season diet was composed mainly by invertebrates, vertebrates, plants and inert material and the food waste of people (pasta and chicken), which appeared with a high occurrence: 58.8 and 38.2%, re- spectively. Other prey species included the sun spider Galeodes spp. (relative abundance, RA%=7.8%), beetles (Dermestidae RA%=8.6% and Curculionidae RA%=7.7%). Dates were also eaten by ravens and appeared in 26.5% of all the analysed pellets. In the non-breeding season, the diet was based also mainly on the rejected carcasses (chicken and some mammals) but a great number of larvae of Diptera were also observed (RA%=72.9%) as a result of carcasses consumption. The brown-necked raven is an omnivorous scavenger that prefers dump sites for feeding. The food waste of humans and vertebrates carcasses are known to be an easy food resource. It is complemented with other prey items appearing with a less fre- quency, mainly arthropods. While otherwise ravens are highly influenced by people, they refused eating on their rubbish dumps during the breeding season. Key words: Pellet analysis, feeding ecology, corvid diet, Timimoun, Adrar Introduction Spatial variation in habitat quality and its demo- the common raven (Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758) graphic consequences have important implications and replacing it in the south (MADGE et al. 1996, for the regulation of animal populations (BURGESS FOUFOPOULOS & LITINAS 2005). It is one of the et al. 2011), although to birds that attendance at typical Eremian region species, occurring through- parcels highly depends on food resources and out the desert belts of range except for north-east their diet (DONALD et al. 2001). Urban develop- Africa and Somalia where the Somali raven, Corvus ment has a marked effect on the ecological and edithae Lort Phillips, 1895 occurs. The latter has behavioural traits of many living organisms, in- been treated previously as a race of the common cluding birds (TRYJANOWSKI et al. 2015). raven but now is widely regarded as a distinct spe- The brown-necked raven is a primarily desert cies; it tolerates much more arid conditions that the and semi-desert bird that avoids areas of cultivation. fan-tailed raven (Corvus rhipidurus Hartert, 1918), It is distributed in North Africa, the Middle East another raven that is often observed associating and Central Asia, overlapping in some places with with brown-necked ravens (ANONYME 1998). The c-Corresponding author mail: [email protected] 239 Belkacem M., F. Marniche, D. Berrabeh, F. M. Medina, S. Daoudi-Hacini & S. Doumandji brown-necked raven occupies a large area in Algeria sisting of fur, bones, claws and teeth, and thus are (ISENMANN & MOALI 2000) where the desert takes thought to provide a more complete sample of the up four fifth of the country with more than 2,000,000 local fauna, the raven too eject the undesirable con- sq. km (DUBOST 1986). tents through the pellets after the digestion (LYMAN Brown-necked raven (Corvus ruficollis Lesson, 1994, LAUDET et al. 2002). 1830) can be encountered in small numbers at the The aims of the present study are to (i) deter- fringes of human settlements where feeding opportu- mine the diet of the brown-necked raven, (ii) test its nities such as refuse dumps may draw in birds from the ecological role in the environment and (iii) revise its neighbouring desert. The species is adaptable and op- abilities to live in hard climate conditions. portunistic and feeds on a variety of food items rang- ing from insects and plants material to carrion. Where Material and Methods not prosecuted, desert raven can be very tame, forag- Study area ing fearlessly near humans (FOUFOUPOULOS & LITINAS 2005). During the breeding season this bird species The research was carried out from March 2014 to goes to natural habitat to find a place for the nest away February 2015 in Adrar in the south west of Algeria. from people. According to ATAYEV (2007) the hunt- Adrar has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classifi- ing in the spring season is not just nearby the humans cation BWh; PEEL et al. 2007), with extremely long and building but in the desert to chase the big invertebrates hot summers and short, very warm winters. Average and vertebrates. As an intelligent, versatile and highly annual rainfall is just 16 mm and summer temperatures adaptable species, this bird displays a great variety of are consistently extremely high (commonly 50 C). This foraging strategies, often visiting mangroves to steal hyper-arid region is characterised by scarce vegetation from bird nests, scavenging for food from rubbish owing to its geography consisting mostly of sand dunes dumps and visiting roads, where it searches for road (erg, chech, raoui), stone plateaus (hamadas), gravel kill and also probes underneath rocks for insects and plains (reg), dry valleys (wadis) and salt flats. Due to grain, The breeding season typically lasts for three to the low precipitation, the region and agriculture depend four months (DEL HOYO et al. 2009). on groundwater from the Continental Intercalary, an The diet of the brown-necked ravens was an- area that includes parts of Algeria, Libya and Tunisia alysed studying the contents of their pellets which (SOKONA & DIALLO 2008). were commonly used because they could give de- Pellets were collected into two sites: (1) the tails about the diet of ravens (LAUDET & SELVA 2005). first one was located nearby the city of Timimoun Pellets are regurgitated oblong masses of the undi- (29°14´N 00°14´W; 283 m a.s.l.: Fig. 1), a city known gested components of a bird’s food, usually con- for its red oasis located between the plate of Tademaït Fig. 1. Map of the study area 240 Scavenging Diet of Brown-necked Raven Corvus ruficollis Lesson, 1830 (Aves: Corvidae) in a Hyper-arid Region... and the south-western edge of the Great Western Erg. using plant material available in the rubbish dumps, or A very large part of the population (33000) resides in with the intact vegetable parts (seeds, fruits or leafs). the Ksour and its garbage dump can attract the ravens. For each food item, we calculated Frequency There are nearly 600,000 palm trees in the Gourara (F%) as percentage of pellets in which a certain item (Timimoun), which constitute a source of feeding for occurred and Relative Abundance (RA%) as per- a pest like this species (HACENE 2008). (2)The second centage of remains of the individuals of a certain site belonged to the region of Touat in the western species from the total number of prey individuals half of the Algerian Sahara, limited to the south by found in the pellets. the Grand Erg Occidental, to the east by the Erg Chech and to the south-east by the Tademaït Plateau (Fig. 1). Statistical analyses It contained a string of small oases strung out along Statistical analysis involved chi-square (when d.f. the eastern edge of the Wadi Messaoud, an extension =1, we used Yates correction for continuity) and like- of the Wadi Saoura. The site was an open space of lihood ration tests (used when there was at least one desert characterised by some small rocky mountains value minor than 5) to compare the consumption of with sand dunes and also by rare plants resistant to different prey types, using the number of prey items the dry climate, such as Acacia and Artemisia species registered in the pellets. Analysis consisted of com- (DUBOST & MOGUEDET 1998). paring the number of a certain prey item with the to- The brown-necked ravens avoid human popula- tal number of the remainder prey identified (MEDINA tions in the cities during the breeding season and are et al. 2006); the significance level was p< 0.05. We found around the accommodation bases of compa- used Student-T test to compare the parameters of the nies and on lands immediately near the bases.
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