Snail kite consumption of native and exotic snails.

<p>The proportion of native (black) and exotic (gray) snails consumed by snail kites between 2004 and 2014 in the (B) Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and the (D) Everglades. Sample sizes are noted in parentheses above each bar. Histograms show the proportion of native (black) and exotic (gray) snails consumed, by size class, in the (C) Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in 2013 (n = 292) and the (E) Everglades in 2014 (n = 813). This species distinction illustrates the expansion of snail sizes made available by the presence of the exotic snail. These data were collected as part of a long-term monitoring program monitoring snail kite demography [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0165427#pone.0165427.ref021" target="_blank">21</a>]. During this monitoring effort snail shells were collected opportunistically from snail kite foraging perches within each of the sampling regions. (A) An example of a foraging perch; a cypress tree (<i>Taxodium distichum</i>), with a pile of discarded snail sells underneath. Shell length was measured in the same way that snails were for experiments (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0165427#sec002" target="_blank">Methods</a>). No snail shells were collected in the Everglades in 2008.