Moult is associated with higher diversity of food items in the diet of Common Bulbuls (<i>Pycnonotus barbatus</i>) in Cameroon

2025/02/11 by Crinan Jarrett, Chima J. Nwaogu, Christian N. Tchana +6 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Biological Control of Invasive Species

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/ibi.13395

Abstract

Moult is an essential part of birds' annual cycle, and requires sufficient intake of energy and nutrients, but we understand little about how such nutritional requirements are met by wild birds. Using faecal metabarcoding, we analysed the diet of moulting and non‐moulting Common Bulbuls Pycnonotus barbatus , captured in Cameroon. We found that the diet of moulting birds was more diverse than that of non‐moulting birds, with approximately 1.5 times more arthropod and plant taxa, plus evidence of dietary composition differences between groups. Our results provide novel insight of a likely strategy used by wild birds to fuel the essential self‐maintenance task of moult.

Citations

• Nutritional Mechanisms and Temporal Control of Migratory Energy Accumulation in Birds
• Rarefaction and extrapolation with Hill numbers: a framework for sampling and estimation in species diversity studies
• Bitter fruits of hard labour: diet metabarcoding and telemetry reveal that urban songbirds travel further for lower-quality food
• Current methods and future directions in avian diet analysis

Cited by

• Species‐specific trends in migratory passage time in Nigeria based on long‐term ringing data

Discussions

• In a new paper using metabarcoding Jarret et al. @barbarahelm.bsky.social found that moult is associated with higher diversity of food items in the diet of Common Bulbuls (Pycnonotus barbatus) in Came [bsky, 6 points, 0 comments]

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