I would like to study food habits of some small and middle size birds. I want to find methods to research several individuals' food habits several times and then compare. Does anyone have some suggestions for my work?
Hello Feng,
I don't have such experience of analysis of food habits of birds, but i have some suggestion for you as i am familiar with some similar pellet group analysis (Microhistology) for the herbivores (Deer).
Dropping analysis is one of the technique used for determining gallinaceous birds food habits but i don't know how much it will work with your study. Several studies on this techniques has also been referred like Dearbon 1932, Dalke 1935, Hamilton 1933.
The determination of diet can also be achieved by examining crop or gut contents but for that the bird should be capture first and also it is especially used for the waterfowls.
I am attaching two files may be of some help to you.
For herbivorous species, microhistology technique is roughly recommended, however microhistology has pros and cons. On the one hand, it is a slow process of analysis and in addition, plant proportion found in faeces unlikely to reflect their proportions diet as a result of differential digestibilities. But on the other hand, identify to species level is possible by this technique.
Maybe it depends on your aims and the diet composition of the study species because there are another techniques like stable isotopes. By this technique, to my knowledge, identify to species level is not possible, but I think it is faster than microhistology. If you want to compare between species, I think stable isotopes is a viable method.
I attached files which may help you.
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