Urbanization Drives Patterns of Individual Specialization but Not Dietary Diversity Among Coyotes

Niche partitioning and resource specialization can lead to spatial heterogeneity in trophic dynamics, but little is known about how these dynamics may change across landscapes of varying complexity. Urban ecosystems are characterized by a wider array of both natural and anthropogenic food sources, which can increase predator densities compared to exurban/rural and wildland areas. Urbanization could thus intensify intraspecific competition and facilitate individual specialization, or relax intraspecific competition if resources are not limited, leading to more generalized diets. To investigate how urbanization affects dietary niche breadth and individual specialization, we used fecal DNA metabarcoding to analyze vertebrate and plant dietary components of 50 coyotes (Canis latrans) across three landscapes in Washington, USA: the Seattle metropolitan area, Bainbridge Island, and two wildland study sites. Population-level dietary richness was similar between urban and island coyotes ( $\overline{x}$  = 51 and 49 taxa, respectively), but considerably lower for wildland coyotes ( $\overline{x}$  = 33 taxa). Across sites, coyotes ate a variety of Rosaceae plants, voles, and rabbits. Deer were an important food source for wildland coyotes, but not for urban or island coyotes. Despite variation in population-level richness, individual dietary richness was surprisingly consistent within individuals across regions. Urban and exurban island coyotes had the lowest degrees of individual specialization, whereas wildland coyotes exhibited the highest degree of individual specialization. Specialization and dietary diversity may be constrained by home range size and the diversity of prey types available to an individual coyote, highlighting the importance of landscape and prey heterogeneity across landscapes. These findings suggest that urbanization can relax intraspecific competition among predators, whereas individual dietary specialization may have a greater influence on predator-prey dynamics and human-wildlife conflict in more natural ecosystems with less anthropogenic influence.