Temporal and trophic partitioning promote coexistence between mesocarnivores in a Mediterranean landscape

The partition of the ecological niche can enhance the coexistence of predators due to differences in how they exploit three main resources: food, space, and time, the latter being an axis that remains often unexplored. We studied niche segregation in a Mediterranean mesocarnivore community in sites where the top predator, the Iberian lynx, is absent, addressing simultaneously two niche axes: the temporal and the trophic axes. Temporal overlap between prey and predator and potential competitors was analysed by comparing daily activity patterns of predators and prey species through data obtained by using 24 camera-traps deployed in three different sites of the Donana National Park. We further examined the trophic dimension by compiling and analysing diet information in the study area and exploring trophic preferences between potential competitors. We found an overall temporal segregation between trophic generalist species while those species which showed higher values of temporal overlap differ largely in their trophic preferences. Furthermore, we observed an overall high degree of overlap between the activity patterns of predators and their putative prey (the common genet vs small mammals and the red fox vs European rabbit). Our study suggests that coexistence of the different species that compose the mesocarnivore assemblage in Mediterranean landscapes can be facilitated by the marked temporal segregation of the generalist species due to a divergence in the activity patterns, but also by differences in trophic preferences by specialist species when their activity patterns overlap.