Small mammals in the diet of barn owls, Tyto alba (Aves: Strigiformes) along the mid-Araguaia river in central Brazil

• Main Authors: Rita G. Rocha, Eduardo Ferreira, Yuri L.R. Leite, Carlos Fonseca, Leonora P. Costa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pensoft Publishers 2011-12-01
• Series: Zoologia (Curitiba)
• Subjects: Agroecosystems; pellets; riverbanks; Rodentia
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-46702011000600003

We collected and analyzed 286 Barn owl, Tyto alba (Scopoli, 1769), pellets from two nests in different environments along the mid-Araguaia River in central Brazil. Our analyses revealed that these owls feed mainly on small mammals, especially rodents. Owls from the riverbanks at Fazenda Santa Fé had a more diverse diet, preying mainly on rodents that typically inhabit riparian grasslands - Holochilus sciureus Wagner, 1842 - and forests - Hylaeamys megacephalus (Fischer, 1814) and Oecomys spp., which probably also occur in forest borders or clearings. On the other hand, owls from an agroecosystem at Fazenda Lago Verde preyed mostly on rodent species common in these agrarian fields, Calomys tocantinsi Bonvicino, Lima & Almeida, 2003. Additionally, we compared small mammal richness estimates based on the analysis of owl pellets with estimates from live-trapping in the same areas. Owl pellets revealed two rodent species undetected by live traps - Euryoryzomys sp. and Rattus rattus (Linnaeus, 1758) - and four rodent species were trapped, but not found in owl pellets - Oecomys roberti Thomas, 1904, Pseudoryzomys simplex (Winge, 1887), Rhipidomys ipukensis Rocha, B.M.A. Costa & L.P. Costa, 2011, and Makalata didelphoides (Desmarest, 1817). Traps yielded higher species richness, but these two methods complement each other for surveying small rodents.