The diet of a small carnivore in a recovering semi-arid landscape

The aim of this research is to examine the diet of the small carnivores living in a newly created nature reserve in the Nama-Karoo. The Nama-Karoo is a semi-desert habitat, with many plants and animals which are highly adapted to the extreme temperatures and unpredictable rainfall. With relatively few large predators, small to medium sized carnivores are abundant and are likely the key drivers of ecosystem functions, although their ecology here is poorly known. As opportunistic foragers with a varied diet, small carnivores have the potential to be useful biodiversity indicators in the area through analyses of their diets. In this study, scats of target species will be collected and analysed for their contents, using both morphological and molecular techniques. For morphological analysis, scat contents will be sorted by prey item, and percentage occurrence and mass will be used to calculate their relative importance in diet. For molecular analysis, we will use Illumina metabarcoding to sequence the DNA of all the prey species in the samples. It is likely that key prey species will be those most available in the area at that time, and that molecular analysis will identify a wider range of species. This will create a baseline dietary ‘reference index’ which can be used for ongoing monitoring, and add to knowledge of the species communities and interactions in this area