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The contrasting feeding ecology of great egrets and roseate spoonbills in limnetic and estuarine colonies

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Abstract

Multispecies colonies of wading birds frequently occur in both freshwater and estuarine environments, in locations with potentially safe places for nesting where the nearby shallow waters provide food for rearing chicks. In 2011/2012, we investigated the feeding ecology of two large-sized waterbirds, the great egret, Ardea alba, and the roseate spoonbill, Platalea ajaja, which breed sympatrically in limnetic and estuarine colonies 65 km apart in southern Brazil. Whole blood from chicks was sampled for δ13C and δ15N stable isotopes, and their diets were assessed using direct (conventional) methods. The diet of spoonbills consisted of fish, insects, crustaceans, mollusks, and seeds, whereas great egrets fed mainly on fish, insects, and crustaceans. Bayesian stable isotope mixing models indicated that spoonbills fed exclusively in limnetic habitats, regardless of where they bred, whereas egrets breeding in the estuarine colony fed on both estuarine and limnetic prey, expanding their isotopic niche considerably. Dietary data confirmed this result, with the diets of egrets in the freshwater colony showing high similarity to the diets of spoonbills in both freshwater and estuarine colonies. The isotopic niche overlap was the lowest between species in the estuarine colony, suggesting that the feeding plasticity of egrets reduces interspecific competition during breeding.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the following colleagues for support with lab and fieldwork: Fernanda Marques, Paloma Carvalho, Patrícia Mancini, Luciano Fischer, Augusto Silva-Costa, Leonardo Furlanetto, Cindy Barreto, Fernando Faria, Giovanni Maurício, Rayanne Brum, Guilherme Nunes, Dimas Gianuca, Cícero Faria, Suzana Martins, Adriano Miranda and Felipe Neves. The authors are grateful to MSc. Fabiano Corrêa (IO-FURG), Dr. Edélti Albertoni (ICB-FURG), Dr. Sônia Hefler (ICB-FURG), Márcio Freire (IO-FURG), MSc. Caroline Igansi (ICB-FURG), Dr. Roberta Barutot (IO-FURG), MSc. Katiele Dummel (IO-FURG), MSc. Cristiane Bolico (IO-FURG), Bruna Sassi (IO-FURG) and MSc. Sônia Huckembeck (IO-FURG) for support with the identification of food items; Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação das Aves Silvestres (CEMAVE) of the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio) for providing metal bands and a banding permit, and the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade—ICMBio for sampling permits to carry out this study (Permit No. 29998-2). We are also grateful to Estação Ecológica do Taim/ICMBio for logistic support during fieldwork and the owners of the properties where sampling was carried out. Finally, we acknowledge Dr. André de Mendonça Lima and Dr. Alexandre Miranda Garcia for their suggestions on a previous version of this manuscript, as well as two anonymous reviewers for great suggestions for improvements. Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) provided MSc scholarship to V. O. Britto. L. Bugoni is a fellow from the Brazilian CNPq—Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (No. 308697/2012-0). This study was carried out according to the institutional guidelines on animal ethics in scientific studies.

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  1. Waterbirds and Sea Turtles Laboratory, Institute of Biological Sciences, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG), CP 474, Rio Grande, RS, CEP 96203-900, Brazil

    Vanessa Oliveira Britto & Leandro Bugoni

  2. Graduate Program in Biology of Freshwater Ecosystems, Institute of Biological Sciences, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG), CP 474, Rio Grande, RS, CEP 96203-900, Brazil

    Vanessa Oliveira Britto & Leandro Bugoni

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  1. Vanessa Oliveira Britto
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Britto, V.O., Bugoni, L. The contrasting feeding ecology of great egrets and roseate spoonbills in limnetic and estuarine colonies. Hydrobiologia 744, 187–210 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2076-1

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