DNA metabarcoding reveals that coyotes in New York City consume wide variety of native prey species and human food

Abstract

Carnivores are currently colonizing cities where they were previously absent. These urban environments are novel ecosystems characterized by habitat degradation and fragmentation, availability of human food, and different prey assemblages than surrounding areas. Coyotes (Canis latrans) established a breeding population in New York City (NYC) over the last few decades, but their ecology within NYC is poorly understood. In this study, we used non-invasive scat sampling and DNA metabarcoding to profile vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant dietary items with the goal to compare the diets of urban coyotes to those inhabiting non-urban areas. We found that both urban and non-urban coyotes consumed a variety of plants and animals as well as human food. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) were an important food item for coyotes within and outside NYC. In contrast, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were mainly eaten by coyotes inhabiting non-urban areas. Domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) was the human food item found in most scats from both urban and non-urban coyotes. Domestic cats (Felis catus) were consumed by urban coyotes but were detected in only a small proportion of the scats (<5%), which differs markedly from high rates of cat depredation in some other cities. In addition, we compared our genetic metabarcoding analysis to a morphological analysis of the same scat samples. We found that the detection similarity between the two methods was low and it varied depending on the type of diet item.