Researchers at Yale and the Smithsonian Institution say it’s time to settle a very old food fight.
In a study published March 18 in the journal Ecology and Evolution, authors Matt Davis and Silvia Pineda-Munoz argue that scientists need to focus as much on “when” animals eat as they do “what” animals eat. Without the proper time context, they say, an animal’s diet can tell very different stories.
“Diet is one of the most important features of animals,” said Davis, a Yale graduate student in geology and geophysics. “But often, we can’t seem to agree on what animals ate. Grizzly bears, for example, eat different foods at different times. If you looked at their diet in the spring, it would look like what wolves eat, but in the fall, bears eat mostly seeds, just like squirrels.”