Is polecat (Mustela putorius) diet affected by "mediterraneity"?

Carnivores in Mediterranean ecosystems respond to the inherent heterogeneity of these systems by tracking the spatial and temporal availability of food resources. This feeding strategy, however, has been associated primarily with generalist carnivores and little is known for specialist species such as the European polecat. We collected polecat scat to determine the diet of this species, how it matches the seasonal availability of food resources, and how it is affected by population spatial structure and anthropogenic disturbance. Polecats were present in only 34% of the surveyed area and were clumped into three main population nuclei. Despite the spatial segregation of the populations, they had no significant differences in food items consumed. Polecats mostly fed on mammals (percentage of occurrence (P.O.)= 43%) and arthropods (P.O. = 49%). Biomass intake was also mostly from mammals (percentage of biomass (P.B.) = 96%), followed by birds (P.B. = 3%), with arthropods contributing less than 1%. Lagomorphs were the most consumed prey (P.O. = 25% and P.B. = 87%). which is consistent with the marked spatial overlap between scat with high content in lagomorphs and the areas with high wild rabbit availability. These results indicate that polecats are specialists in the consumption of wild rabbits, spatially track the availability of this prey, and may be affected by the decrease in abundance of the prey populations. Future conservation of polecats in Mediterranean regions of southern Portugal may be achieved through the restoration of hunted and diseased wild rabbit populations. (C) 2009 Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Saugetierkunde. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.