Estimating biomass of berries consumed by gray wolves

Thomas D. Gable, Steven K Windels, John G. Bruggink

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/debatepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) consume berries and other wild fruits seasonally when available or abundant. However, a method to convert percent frequency of occurrence or percent volume of berries in wolf scats to percent biomass has not yet been developed. We used estimates of the average number of blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) seeds in 10 individual wolf scats collected in and adjacent to Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota, USA, along with published values of the number of seeds per blueberry and blueberry masses to estimate that a wolf scat containing only berries equated to an average of 0.468 kg of berries consumed. We recommend using this berry conversion factor (0.468 kg/scat) to convert the percent frequency of occurrence or percent volume of berries and other wild fruits to percent biomass when estimating wolf diets from scats.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)129-131
Number of pages3
JournalWildlife Society Bulletin
Volume41
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2017
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Wildlife Society, 2017

Keywords

  • Canis lupus
  • correction factor
  • fruits
  • scat analysis
  • wolf diet

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