Food habits of sympatric jaguars and pumas across a gradient of human disturbance

Foster and colleagues compared the diets of jaguars and pumas in Belize using scat analysis along a gradient of human disturbance. They found the two big cats partition prey to some degree, with jaguars taking larger prey such as peccaries and armadillos and pumas relying more on smaller and medium prey including brocket deer and pacas, while both shifted diet in disturbed areas. The study illuminated how Neotropical felid coexistence depends on prey partitioning and how human disturbance alters prey use and potential for conflict. It is a valuable reference for jaguar-puma dietary overlap and for understanding how habitat change reshapes the predation ecology of co-occurring large cats in Central America.