Dietary niche breadth in a local community of passerine birds: an analysis using phylogenetic contrasts

The analysis of a local community of forest passerines (13 species) using phylogenetic contrasts shows a correlation between body size of bird species and mean prey size, minimum prey size, maximum prey size and the size range of dietary items. This suggests that larger birds drop small prey taxa from their prey list, because of the difficulty of capturing very small prey, for energetic reasons or because of microhabitat usage. We find some support for the third hypothesis. Dietary niche breadth calculated across prey taxa is not related to body size. Dietary niche breadth, however, is correlated with size-corrected measurements of the bill and locomotor apparatus. Long and slender bills increase the dietary niche breadth. Thus subtle differences constrain foraging and the techniques of extracting certain prey taxa form crevices. Dietary niche breadth and foraging diversity are positively correlated with population density: at least locally dietary generalists occur at higher breeding densities than specialists.