2017 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 315-321
Studies of the food habits of mammals often adopt fecal analyses. The diversity of fecal composition is usually calculated for sample groups representing a place or a season. The diversity is, however, obtained also for each sample. The former and the latter are here termed as “population diversity” and “sample diversity”, respectively. Both metrics have importance but only the former has been used. In this study, both diversity metrics were calculated for five animals from six locations: the sika deer (Cervus nippon) from two locations, the Japanese serow (Capricornis crispus) and the wild boar (Sus scrofa) from one location, the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) at two locations, and the Japanese marten (Martes melampus) at two locations. Population diversity and sample diversity were close in deer, serows, and boars, while population diversity was greater than sample diversity in raccoon dogs and martens. Among the latter two animals, the differences were greater in the marten than in the raccoon dog. These differences were discussed in terms of body size, food habits, digestive physiology, and food availability.
