Dietary relationships among four granivorous doves in Venezuelan savannas

摘要: A total of 537 crops from four coexisting granivorous doves (Columbina minuta, C. passerina, talpacoti and Scardafella squammata), collected on seven sam- pling dates in a Venezuelan savanna, were examined to assess food partitioning. These closely related are resident birds, overlap broadly both daily activity patterns habitat use; circumstances like this, segregation the use resources often occurs. It was found that: (a) differences body dimen- sions did not account for variations seed size taken by doves; they all ate seeds same range showed high similarity preferred; (b) importance different sizes diets changed seasonally with similar tendencies species, (c) there up 4-fold mean consumed individuals species date; (d) 63 plant dove constituted 98 99.5% diets; (e) dietary prey type throughout year. The relationships this study support idea that these birds forage opportunistically, some among their may be result random sampling heteroge- neous pool available.