Based on previous studies, we have a good idea of what our Seattle urban coyotes are probably eating. Their diets likely consist of a high proportion of rodents and rabbits, in addition to some small birds, reptiles, insects, vegetation, and occasional domestic animals. Coyotes are known to be dietary generalists, meaning that that they are willing to eat a variety of different prey types. However, it is not well-known how individual urban coyotes choose their prey and if individuals specialize in specific diets, with a high level of inter-individual variation in prey choice, or if they are choosing for prey based simply on what is available. Using dietary information obtained from scat, we can begin to understand how coyotes use resources across the urban ecosystem. In addition  we will use a network of camera traps in urban parks to understand prey availability and abundance to see if coyote diet mirrors the levels of availability of different food items.

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We can also use dietary information to understand where human-coyote conflict may occur. We hypothesize that where coyotes have a higher abundance of anthropogenically sourced food in their diet, they may be more likely to come into conflict with humans.

This process is fully conducted using non-invasive genetic techniques, meaning we don't have to harm or disturb the animals at all in order to learn information about them. Our first step to obtaining diet information is to collect coyote scat in the field. We then bring scat back to our lab and processes it. This includes extracting both the DNA from the coyote who deposited the scat sample and the DNA from the items that the coyote ate. The extracted DNA is then amplified using primers that will allow us to detect vertebrates, invertebrates, and vegetation. The amplified DNA is then sequenced.

 

The overall process is called fecal metabarcoding, and it relies on the fact that all organisms have unique 'barcodes' that can be sequenced, allowing us to identify individual sequences.