Mammals in Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) pellets from Kharkiv Region, Ukraine

By

Yatsiuk, Yehor
Brusentsova, Nataliia
Filatova, Yuliya

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023-1-20

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

11

Pages

e98772--

Subjects

Cricetidae , Diet , Erinaceidae , Gliridae , Leporidae , Mammals , Muridae , Mustelidae , Owl pellets , Rodents , Soricidae , Strix aluco , Talpidae , Tawny owl , Vespertilionidae

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.11.e98772

 

Abstract

The Tawny owl (Strix aluco) is a common owl species in Europe, demonstrating generalist diet strategy. Its main prey are small rodents and numerous studies show that the composition of its diet broadly reflects changes in prey species abundance in its habitats. Due to strictly sedentary habits of adult birds and their year-round territoriality, it is possible to locate habitats of their prey with a precision of several hundred metres. Analysis of owl pellets is a traditional method in faunistic studies to provide data on distribution of small mammals, especially cryptic species which are hard to be found using trapping.
Here, we present a dataset on mammals found in Tawny owl pellets collected during up to 13-year studies in the Kharkiv Region, Ukraine in three territories. Data from two territories were collected in a systematic way and allowed us to make analysis of seasonal, year-to-year and habitat variability in the Tawny owl diet and local mammal species composition.