CCSiC Fellow Highlight: Learning about coyotes in San Francisco from their scat
In recent decades, humans and
animals have increasingly co-occurred in high densities in urban
areas. Although declines in biodiversity are associated with
urbanization, numerous species have adjusted to and thrive in
cities. The success of urban animals is largely attributed to the
expansion of their diet to include human-provided food, resulting
in frequent conflicts with people. These conflicts have
wide-ranging financial, health, and ecosystem-level consequences,
necessitating a deeper understanding of organismal adaptation to
human resources. Although past research has explored the
population-level diet of species in cities, individual
differences, mediating mechanisms, and biological consequences
are seldom addressed. This presents a novel opportunity to
integrate animal behavior, urban ecology, and participatory
science methods to assess how the built environment shapes the
diet of urban animals.
My research explores the impacts of
urbanization on wildlife with a population of urban coyotes
present in San Francisco. Through a combination of noninvasive
biological sampling, wet lab work, and community science, I am
investigating how coyote diet varies across the urban landscape.
Specifically, alongside several community scientists–including a
naturalist, photographer, dog-walker, and archaeologist–I
collected coyote scats throughout the city. I then investigated
coyote diet with DNA metabarcoding, a molecular technique that
identifies prey DNA in a predator’s scat, yielding a
high-resolution portrait of diet. To aid in scat collection, I
developed a community science program for training participants
in animal tracking and familiarizing them with iNaturalist, where
collections and associated metadata are logged.
Although the final results are not
yet published (soon!), I’ve focused on opportunities to
communicate my research findings to the broader public. Perhaps
the most fun was my involvement with a new nature documentary
series by PBS called Human Footprint, which aired this past
summer. A feature on coyotes in San Francisco can be watched in
Episode 5:
“The Urban Jungle”. More recently, SFGate
published an article on the SF coyote diet study, discussing
the methods and results-to-date in more detail. Finally, I’ve
been contributing to the development of an urban ecology section
of the California Academy of Sciences’ newest exhibit California:
State of Nature, which opens to the public on May 24th. For
those interested in learning more about my research and getting a
little sneak peak of the new exhibit, I’ll be giving a talk at
NightLife: California Native on Thursday May 23rd (21+).