家猫(Feliscatus),最受欢迎的宠物之一,在全世界范围内广泛使用。这种中型食肉动物对生物多样性有众所周知的负面影响,但是仍然需要更好地了解它们捕食的大致原因。基于一个公民科学项目,我们评估了时空的作用(即,纬度,经度,和季节),气候(即,降雨量),人为(即,人类足迹,HFI),和个人(即,性别和年龄)关于法国大都市猫返回家园的猎物数量的变量。在2015年至2022年期间监测的5048只猫中,来自12个不同类别(n=36,568)的猎物被送回家中:68%的哺乳动物。21%的鸟类,和8%的脂肪。猫带回家的泼妇在夏天达到顶峰,而啮齿动物是在夏秋季记录的。猫带回家的鸟在春夏季和秋季达到顶峰,蜥蜴在春季和夏末达到顶峰。较低的HFI与更多的田鼠和老鼠带回家有关,而蜥蜴和鸟类则相反。年轻的猫更容易带回家,鸟,和爬行动物。尽管环境因素在猫带回家的猎物中起着次要作用,猎物物种分布的一些地理特征部分解释了猫的狩猎行为。
Domestic cats (Felis catus), one of the most popular pets, are widespread worldwide. This medium-sized carnivore has well-known negative effects on biodiversity, but there is still a need to better understand the approximate causes of their predation. Based on a citizen science project, we assessed the role of spatiotemporal (i.e., latitude, longitude, and seasons), climatic (i.e., rainfall), anthropogenic (i.e., human footprint, HFI), and individual (i.e., sex and age) variables on the number of preys returned home by cats in metropolitan France. Over the 5048 cats monitored between 2015 and 2022, prey from 12 different classes (n = 36,568) were returned home: 68% mammals, 21% birds, and 8% squamates. Shrews brought home by cats peaked during summer, while rodents were recorded during summer-autumn. Birds brought home by cats peaked in spring-summer and in autumn, and lizards peaked in spring and in late summer. Lower HFI was associated with more voles and mice brought home, and the opposite trend was observed for lizards and birds. Younger cats were more prone to bring home shrews, birds, and reptiles. Although environmental factors play a minor role in prey brought home by cats, some geographical characteristics of prey species distribution partly explains the hunting behaviour of cats.