Temporal variation in the diet of the Kelp Gull in relation to feeding on refuse was studied at a reproductive colony on Isla de las Gaviotas, Uruguay. Diet was assessed temporally within the reproductive season, and inter-annually for 2011 and 2012 reproductive seasons, and the 2013 non-reproductive season. Data analysis was focused on the proportion of the most important diet items recorded in regurgitated pellets: fish and organic refuse. Fish and organic refuse correlated negatively at an intra-monthly scale. Additionally, fish was more frequently recorded during the incubation period (68% of pellets) than during the chick-rearing period (42% of pellets). Conversely, proportion of organic refuse was larger during the chick-rearing period (18% of pellets) than during the incubation period (8% of pellets). During reproduction, fish proportion in diet was larger (2011 = 41% of pellets, 2012 = 32% of pellets) than refuse (2011 = 16% of pellets, 2012 = 15%) and the opposite situation occurred during the non-reproductive season (fish 2013 = 14% of pellets, refuse 2013 = 41% of pellets).
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19 May 2020
Temporal Variation of Kelp Gull's (Larus dominicanus) Diet on a Coastal Island of the Rio de la Plata Estuary, Uruguay: Refuse as an Alternative Food Source
María Fernanda Burgues,
Javier Lenzi,
Emanuel Machín,
Lucía Genta,
Franco Teixeira de Mello
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Waterbirds
Vol. 43 • No. 1
March 2020
Vol. 43 • No. 1
March 2020
anthropogenic food
Fish
foraging
garbage
gull diet
gull reproduction
incubation period