High resolution multi-marker DNA metabarcoding reveals sexual dietary
differentiation in a bird with minor dimorphism
Abstract
Although sexual dietary differentiation is well known in birds, it is
usually linked with significant morphological dimorphism between males
and females, with lower differentiation reported in sexually monomorphic
or only slightly dimorphic species. However, this may be an artefact of
poor taxonomic resolution achieved in most conventional dietary studies,
which may be unable to detect subtle intraspecific differentiation in
prey consumption. Here we show the power of multi-marker metabarcoding
to address these issues, focusing on a slightly dimorphic generalist
passerine, the black wheatear Oenanthe leucura. Using markers from four
genomic regions (18S, 16S, COI and trnL), we analysed faecal droppings
collected from 93 adult black wheatears during the breeding season. We
found that sexes were rather similar in bill and body features, though
males had a slightly thicker bill and longer wings and tail than
females. Diet was dominated in both sexes by a very wide range of
arthropod species and a few fleshy fruits, but the overall diet
diversity was higher for males than females, and there was a much higher
frequency of occurrence of ants in female (58%) than male (29%) diets.
We hypothesise that the observed sexual differentiation was likely
related to females foraging closer to their offspring on abundant prey,
while males consumed a wider variety of prey while foraging more widely.
Overall, our results suggest that dietary sexual differentiation in
birds may be more widespread than recognised at present, and that
multi-marker DNA metabarcoding is a particularly powerful tool to
unveiling such differences.