In sum, urbanization was associated with greater among-individual niche variation and individual dietary specialization in coyotes, a pattern we propose reflects the effects of abundant anthropogenic food subsidies and spatial variation in env. conditions within cities. Photo by @sfacc.bsky.social

Taken together, while each urban individual eats a narrow diet, individuals in the city eat quite different diets from one another, especially with regard to human food consumption. But like our scat study, individuals living in the same territories had relatively similar diets 🍗

We found that individual urban coyotes had dietary niches almost 3x narrower than nonurban coyotes. Similarly, urban individuals had more consistent diets (smaller residual intraindividual variabilities). That means each urban coyote was consuming a smaller “menu” of food types.

Coyote whiskers grow gradually over several months, so we cut each whisker into small segments. Each segment gave us a isotopic “snapshot” of diet from a different point in time, letting us measure how consistent (or variable) an individual’s diet was ✂️🐾

Cities are very heterogeneous & food availability varies across neighborhoods. So, does urbanization create conditions favorable for individual specialization? We tested this hypothesis by comparing the diets of an urban pop of #coyotes in #SanFrancisco to a nonurban pop in Marin County.

After a long posting break, it’s time for a big life update! 🎓 I graduated from @ucdavis.bsky.social in June, and today I'm starting as an NSF PRFB postdoc in Chris Schell’s lab at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social. Though SF coyotes will always have my heart, I'm pivoting from coyotes to raccoons 🦝

DNA #metabarcoding allowed us to better capture the extent of human food in the diet. Feeding coyotes can exacerbate conflict. These results can help our excellent wildlife agencies like @sfacc.bsky.social locate hotspots of feeding/attractants for further intervention. PLEASE DON'T FEED COYOTES!

Coyotes are generalists, but do individuals specialize? Within family groups, individual specialization was strongest in the least urban territories and weakest in the most urban ones. Does human food ameliorate competition and reduce niche differences among group members in the same territory?

We also found that the number of restaurants in a territory correlated with consumption of rats/mice, highlighting how the foraging strategies of urban animals are linked to human behavior and infrastructure. By eating rats, urban coyotes provide an important ecosystem service! 🐀 #UrbanEcology

But the most common species was chicken, a food item sourced from garbage, pet food, and intentional feeding. The amount of human food in the diet was correlated with impervious surface cover: the more urbanized a coyote territory, the more human-sourced food in the diet 🍗

So, what are coyotes in #SanFrancisco eating? We identified 59 vertebrate species which included the usual suspects—gopher, rat, raccoon, vole, and human food—but also skunk, pigeon, duck, and salamander. Despite what this photo I took in the field shows, cat DNA was only detected in <5% of scats 🐈‍⬛

When I see coyotes in SF, they often have their ears like this—what I've heard called "airplane ears". What's going on here? It's making me think of this paper on how traits that predict domestication also predict adaptation of wildlife to urban environments. ✈️ 🐾

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Well this was an excellent way to procrastinate this morning! Loving these vague words like "dynamics", "across", "depend", and "within" 🙃

Hi all, I finally made the leap here! I'm a PhD candidate in the Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit at UC Davis studying individual variation in coyote diet and endocrinology in SF. Follow me for more on #urbanwildlife #DNAmetabarcoding #stableisotopes #coyotes and pics of urban critters!