Dietary information is lacking in most of small to mid-sized carnivores due to their elusive predatory behaviour and versatile feeding habits. The leopard cat (LPC; Prionailurus bengalensis) and the Asiatic golden cat (AGC; Catopuma temminckii) are two important yet increasingly endangered carnivore species in the temperate mountain forest ecosystem in Southwest China, a global biodiversity hotspot and a significant reservoir of China’s endemic species. We investigated the vertebrate prey of the two sympatric felids using faecal DNA and a next-generation sequencing (NGS)/metabarcoding approach. Forty vertebrate prey taxa were identified from 93 LPC and 10 AGC faecal samples; 37 taxa were found in the LPC diet, and 20 were detected in the AGC diet. Prey included 27 mammalian taxa, 11 birds, one lizard and one fish, with 73% (29/40) of the taxa assigned to the species level. Rodents and pikas were the most dominant LPC prey categories, whereas rodents, pheasant, fowl and ungulates were the main AGC prey. We also analysed the seasonal and altitudinal variations in the LPC diet. Our results provide the most comprehensive dietary data for these felids and valuable information for their conservation planning.

Understanding the diets of carnivores is essential for resolving food web interactions and the population dynamics of both prey and predators and for designing effective strategies for species and ecosystem conservation. As effective predators, wild felids play important roles in various ecosystems, but relatively little is known about the dietary habits of many species, primarily owing to their elusive behavior. We used a DNA-based method to analyze the vertebrates and plants constituting the diet of leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis) in the temperate forests of the mountains of southwest China, a global biodiversity hotspot. DNA extracted from leopard cat scats was amplified with primers targeting either the vertebrate mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene (N = 25 scats) or the psbCL region of the chloroplast genome of vascular plants (N = 42 scats). The polymerase chain reaction products were sequenced and prey taxa were assigned based on sequence similarity. We identified a total of 16 taxa of vertebrate prey, with pikas (in 76% of the scats) and rodents (40%) predominating. Plant material belonging to 12 taxa was found in 76% of the samples, and the genus Solanum and subfamily Rosoideae were the most frequently detected plant taxa. The frequency of occurrence of identified plant taxa differed between the spring–summer and fall–winter months. Thus, the leopard cats in our study area have a diversified diet and are highly flexible in adapting their foraging behavior to the locally available prey. Our data suggest that preserving their natural prey base dominated by pikas and rodents may be vital for the subsistence of local populations. The high species resolution and detection sensitivity of the DNA-based method we used in this study make it a powerful and efficient tool for fine-scale analysis of complex diets.

Large mammalian carnivores have undergone catastrophic declines during the Anthropocene across the world. Despite their pivotal roles as apex predators in food webs and ecosystem dynamics, few detailed dietary datasets of large carnivores exist, prohibiting deep understanding of their coexistence and persistence in human-dominated landscapes. Here, we present fine-scaled, quantitative trophic interactions among sympatric carnivores from three assemblages in the Mountains of Southwest China, a global biodiversity hotspot harboring the world's richest large-carnivore diversity, derived from DNA metabarcoding of 1,097 fecal samples. These assemblages comprise a large-carnivore guild ranging from zero to five species along with two mesocarnivore species. We constructed predator-prey food webs for each assemblage and identified 95 vertebrate prey taxa and 260 feeding interactions in sum. Each carnivore species consumed 6-39 prey taxa, and dietary diversity decreased with increased carnivore body mass across guilds. Dietary partitioning was more evident between large-carnivore and mesocarnivore guilds, yet different large carnivores showed divergent proportional utilization of different-sized prey correlating with their own body masses. Large carnivores particularly selected livestock in Tibetan-dominated regions, where the indigenous people show high tolerance toward wild predators. Our results suggest that dietary niche partitioning and livestock subsidies facilitate large-carnivore sympatry and persistence and have key implications for sustainable conservation promoting human-carnivore coexistence.

Biodiversity conservation relies on effective practical methods for assessing species occurrences and distributions, particularly for elusive species. Generalist carnivores are widely distributed and relatively abundant predators with broad dietary ranges, and as such could potentially serve as “biodiversity samplers” of sympatric prey communities. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) diets to survey local vertebrate communities in several mountainous areas in China. Fecal DNA metabarcoding analysis revealed that leopard cat prey from five mountain ranges across China included 99 vertebrate taxa representing 12 taxonomic orders and red fox prey from two of those mountain ranges displayed a similar degree of diversity, which was highly correlated with local species records accrued by traditional survey methods. Our results show that diet metabarcoding analysis of generalist carnivores can be an effective, noninvasive, and economically viable tool for biodiversity monitoring to inform management decisions. In addition, we explored selection criteria and potential candidate species for carnivore sampler‐based biodiversity studies in other parts of the world.

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