A complete dietary review of Japanese birds with special focus on molluscs

Abstract

Birds often hold important positions in the food webs of ecosystems. As a result, interactions between birds and their prey have attracted attention not only in ecology, but also in fields like agriculture and conservation. Avian food resources are well researched in Japan, however there is no database critically reviewing molluscs as a food resource for birds. Here, we present a new database reviewing dietary information for all Japanese bird species. In addition to addressing general diet categories and specific food habits for each bird, we include detailed data on the molluscan prey observed for all species that consume them. The information within this database was collected through intense literary review to provide a complete look at bird species historically present around the country. We also include new information on snail species found in the upper digestive tract of harvested wild birds. This database is publicly available in the Zenodo repository. The information should aid research around the Japanese archipelago, especially projects involving birds or molluscs.

The habitat use and trophic niche comparisons among closely related land snails in Northeast Asia

“…Therefore, it is likely that K. editha and K. gainesi are the main prey of two malacophagous carabid beetles, Damaster blaptoides and Acoptolabrus gehinii, which are the most abundant specialist predators of land snails on Hokkaido Is. (Morii et al, 2016(Morii et al, , 2021Morii & Wakabayashi, 2017).…”

“…(Carabidae, Coleoptera)—appear to be the only and main specialist malacophagous predator preying on Karaftohelix snails in this system (Morii et al, 2016). Other malacophagous organisms (e.g., snakes, fireflies, flatworms, and carnivorous mollusks; Barker, 2004) are not distributed or are rare in Northeast Asia (Imura & Mizusawa, 1996; Morii & Wakabayashi, 2017), and omnivorous rodents and birds—typical predators of land snails (Barker, 2004)—have relied on land snails very little as their food resources, at least on Hokkaido Is., northern Japan (Morii et al, 2021; Morii & Wakabayashi, 2017).…”

Exploring the predation of large land snails using preyed shell remains from rock anvil sites in a tropical limestone rainforest in Malaysia

“…Land snails play a significant role in the terrestrial ecosystem as an important food source for many organisms, including birds and mammals ( Barker 2004 , Bentley-Condit and Smith 2010 , Rosin et al 2011 , Morii et al 2021 , Hashim et al 2021 ). However, very little is known about these ecological interactions in tropical terrestrial ecosystems of Southeast Asia, as there are very few systematic in-situ studies on land snail predation in the region and almost none for macro land snails of shell sizes larger than 10 mm ( Bennett 2014 , Liew and Schilthuizen 2014 ).…”