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Food-Niche Relationships Between Great Horned Owls and Common

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Food-Niche Relationships Between Great Horned Owls and Common January1984] ShortCommunications 175 new buffer systems,or better staining regimes may formed in the Cornell Laboratoryfor Ecologicaland reveal the expression of enzymes not seen in our Evolutionary Genetics. study. Rather, the total score for each tissue over all the taxa we examined is more informative. There- LITERATURE CITED fore, a quantitative comparisonwas made by assign- ARISE, J. C., J. c. PATTON, & C. F. AQUADRO. !980. ing a ! to all tissueswith faint expressionand a 2 to Evolutionary geneticsof birds: comparativemo- those with good expressionand then totalling these lecular evolution in New World warblers and numbers for all enzymes in each tissue(see bottom rodents. J. Hered. 7!: 303-3!0. of Table !). Again, feather pulp was more informa- tive than blood but less informative than internal BAKER,M. C. !981. A musclebiopsy procedurefor use in electrophoreticstudies of birds. Auk 98: organs. 392-393. There are only two serious limitations to using BARROWCLOUGH,G. F., & K. W. CORBIN. !978. Ge- feather pulp for electrophoreticanalysis. First, the netic variation and differentiation in the Paru- birds must either be molting when sampled or be lidae. Auk 95: 691-702. subjectedto plucking to stimulate feather regrowth HARRIS, I-I., & D. A. HOPKINSON. 1976. Handbook of and then recapturedat a later date. Second,in small enzyme electrophoresisin human genetics.New birds such as Bobolinks, warblers (Parulidae), or York, American Elsevier. chickadees(Parus spp.), only tiny amounts of tissue MAY, g., J. E. WRIGHT, & M. STONEKING. !979. Joint can be obtained from the flight and tail feathers,ne- segregation of biochemical loci in Salmonidae: cessitatingthe useof two or more feathers.Mengden resultsfrom experimentswith Salvelinusand re- and Stock (!976) point out, however, that small quan- view of the literature on other species.J. Fish. tities of tissuemay be put into cell culture to increase Res. Board Canada 36: !!14-!126. the amount available; such tissue cultures may also MINGDEN,G. A., & D. STOCK.!976. A preliminary be stored for indefinite periods of time. Alternative- report on the application of current cytological ly, other forms of electrophoresisthat require smaller techniquesto sexing birds. Intern. Zool. Year- quantitiesof tissue(e.g. celluloseacetate) may be per- book !6: 136-14!. formed when only a few loci need to be examined. RYTTMAN,I-I., & I-I. TELGELSTROM.!981. Low degree Especiallyuseful to field workers, the tissueis con- of isozyme variation within and between Her- veniently "pre-packaged,"and may be placed, whole ring Gull (Larusargentatus), Lesser Black-backed or with the upper shaft removed, directly onto dry Gull (Larusfuscus) and their Britishand Swedish ice or into a portable liquid nitrogen flask. In terms subspecies.Hereditas 94: !61-!64. of easeof samplecollection and minimizationof stress SHERMAN,I•. W. !98!. Electrophoresisand avian ge- to birds, we suggestthat feather pulp is a viable al- neological analysis. Auk 98: 419-422. ternative tissuefor non-destructivesampling in avi- S•BLE¾,C.G. !96!. The electrophoreticpatterns of an electrophoreticstudies. avian egg-white proteins as taxonomic charac- We are grateful to Steven Bloom,Irene Brown, Mike ters. Ibis 102: 2!5-284. Denison, Tom Gavin, JoshHamilton, and Jerry Wald~ SMITH, J. K., & E.G. ZIMMERMAN. !976. Biochemical vogel for their help in obtaining the birds. Scott geneticsand evolution of North American black- Camazine and Paul Sherman made many helpful birds,family Icteridae.Comp. Biochem. Physiol. commentson earlier drafts of the manuscript.Fund- 53B: 319-324. ing was provided in part by a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Researchto J. E. Marsden. This work was per- Received14 February1983, accepted25 July 1983. Food-nicheRelationships Between Great Horned Owls and Common Barn-Owls in Eastern Washington RICHARDL. KNIGHTl AND RONALDE. JACKMAN2 •Departmentof WildlifeEcology, University of Wisconsin,Madison, Wisconsin 53706 USA, and 2681749th NE, Seattle,Washington 98115 USA GreatHorned Owls (Bubovirginianus) and Common ships from our analysisof 622 Common Barn-Owl Barn-Owls(Tyto alba)have recentlybecome sympat- pellets,from 6 nestingand 2 roostingsites, and 234 ric in the PacificNorthwest (Stewart !980, Smithand Great Horned Owl pellets, from 4 nesting and 3 Knight !98!) and provide an opportunity for exam- roostingsites, collectedbetween October 1977-June ining resourcepartitioning between two membersc•f .- 1979•in EsquatzelCoulee, Franklin County, Wasl•-._ the samefeeding guild. We quantifieddiet relation- ington.The studyarea and its raptorpopulations are 176 ShortCommunications [Auk,Vol. 101 described in Knight and Smith (1982). Fitch (1947), (Kritzman 1977: 107) is temporally unavailable for Rudolph (1978), and Jaksi• and Y/tfiez (1980) have the strictly nocturnal Common Barn-Owl (Marti 1974, examinedfood-niche relationships between these two Rudolph 1978). Common Barn-Owls are the fourth specieswhen sympatricin California and Chile, pro- most important prey item, in terms of total prey bio- viding the opportunity for comparisons. mass, in the diet of Great Horned Owls. Prey remains in pellets were identified to species MPS of Great Horned Owls (œ _+ 2 SE = 55.24 _+ level, and mean fresh weights were obtained from 9.31 g, n = 872) was significantly greater (P < 0.001) the Bureauof Land Management (1979). The follow- than MPS of Common Barn-Owls (27.44 _+ 1.70 g, ing parametersfor eachowl specieswere calculated: n = 2628). This was the result of Great Horned Owls (1) mean prey size (MPS) (Herrera and Jaksi• 1980), preying on larger prey items such as rabbits and (2) food-niche breadth (Levins 1968: 43), and (3) food- Common Barn-Owls. The food-niche breadth of Great niche overlap (Pianka 1974: 2142). The numbers of Horned Owls was 4.12, considerablygreater than the prey speciesin each owl species'diet were used as 2.28 of Common Barn-Owls, suggestingthat Great entries for computationof niche breadthsand'over- Horned Owls apply a more uniform predation pres- laps. sure over a wider range of animals.Food-niche over- Small mammals were the major prey of Great lap was 0.97 (of a maximumof 1.00). This is largely Horned Owls and Common Barn-Owls at the Es- due to the importance of northern pocket gophers quatzelCoulee study area, both in percentageof total and GreatBasin pocket mice in both owl species'diets. prey items (91.1% and 97.8%, respectively) and in On our study area, these two speciesshow a high percentageof total prey biomass(77.9% and 98.3%) degree of ecologicaloverlap in several traits other (Table 1). Mammals compriseda lower percentageof than diet. Strongestevidence of habitat overlap is the total prey biomassin the diet of Great Horned Owls presenceof Common Barn-Owls in the diet of Great than of Common Barn-Owls (X2 = 162.34, P < 0.001). Horned Owls (Herrera and I-Iiraldo 1976). Addition- Two speciesof mammals, northern pocket gopher ally, Common Barn-Owls and Great Horned Owls (scientific names given in Table 1) and Great Basin showed few or no differences in nest-site structure, pocket mouse,comprised over half of the total prey mean nest height, mean nest-structureheight, land- items in the dietsof both owl species(50.1% for Great use patterns near nesting sites,and distancesof nest Horned Owl and 69.3% for Common Barn-Owl), as sites to human activity (Knight and Smith 1982). well as a major portion of total prey biomass(42.2% Nesting Great Horned Owls exhibited regular and and 73.9%). Rabbits were the third most important Common Barn-Owls random intraspecific distribu- prey species,in terms of biomass,in the diet of Great tions. Their interspecific pattern was random, how- Horned Owls, although they were not found in ever, indicating no interspecific territoriality. There Common Barn-Owl pellets. BecauseCommon Barn- were indications of ecological differences between Owls are smaller than Great Horned Owls (Marti the two species. Common Barn-Owls may utilize 1974), they may have difficulty in capturing rabbits habitats not frequented by Great Horned Owls, as (Jaksi• and Y/tftez 1980). Common Barn-Owls do oc- evidencedby differencesin prey species(e.g. house casionallyeat rabbits (Fitch 1947,Marti 1974);there- mouse).Common Barn-Owlsare strictly nocturnaland fore, an alternative explanation for the absenceof hunt mainly on the wing, whereas Great Horned rabbits as a Common Barn-Owl prey item in our study Owls are more crepuscular and hunt primarily by may be that the largely crepuscularNuttall cottontail flights from perches(Marti 1974, Rudolph 1978). Fi- TABLE1. Prey items from 234 pelletsof Great Horned Owls and from 622 pelletsof CommonBarn-Owls in EsquatzelCoulee, eastern Washington. Common names are in parentheses. Great Horned Owl Common Barn-Owl Number Total prey Number Total prey Weight of prey biomass of prey biomass Prey (g) (%) (%) (%) (%) Mammals Sylvilagusnuttallii 514 1.3 12.4 -- -- (Nuttall cottontail) Spermophiluswashingtoni 172 0.1 0.4 -- -- (Washington ground squirrel) Thomomystalpoides 200 7.7 29.7 5.44 39.3 (northern pocket gopher) January 1984] Short Communications 177 TAIlLE 1. Continued. Great Horned Owl Common Barn-Owl Number Total prey Number Total prey Weight of prey biomass of prey biomass Prey (g) (%) (%) (%) (%) Perognathusparvus 15 43.1 12.5 63.85 34.6 (Great Basin pocket mouse) Dipodomysordii 53 1.4 1.4 0.53 1.0 (Ord's kangaroo rat) Reithrodontomysmegalotis 11 1.5 0.3 3.39 1.3 (western harvest mouse) Peromyscusmaniculatus 19 16.9 6.2 13.77 9.5 (deer mouse) Neotoma cinerea 310 0.3 2.1 0.04 0.4
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