The amphibians’ trophic niche project

We here present “The Amphibians’ Trophic Niche Project”, a long-term study that aims to shed light on different aspects of the trophic niche of Italian amphibians. The first part of this project involves the use of the not invasive technique of stomach flushing to obtain stomach contents from individuals in the wild. The analysis of stomach contents (e.g., recognition, count, measures) will allow to obtain data on species/populations trophic niche, individuals’ diet specialization, and how these traits change in time and space. Particular attention will be paid to cases of syntopic species, to assess the potential occurrence of competition between them and how such interactions affect the resulting trophic niche of the considered populations. The second part involves the development of specific models aiming to explain the differences and similarities of the trophic niche between different amphibian species of Italy and, among them, between populations occurring in different environments and characterized by different history. The third part of the project involves the use of selected model species to test different behavioral traits related to their trophic niche, such as prey preference, optimal foraging and competition. At the time, the dataset consists of 4,367 records from 4 species of Anura (Bufo bufo, Rana dalmatina, R. italica, Pelophylax sp.) and 15 of Urodela (the eight Speleomantes species, the two of Salamandrina, Salamandra Salamandra, Lissotriton vulgaris, L. italicus, Triturus carnifex, Ichthyosaura alpestris). We actually recognized 9,709 prey categories belonging to 65 Orders of invertebrates.