Fecal DNA metabarcoding helps characterize the Canada jay’s diet and confirms its reliance on stored food for winter survival and breeding

• Alex O. Sutton ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  * E-mail: a.sutton@bangor.ac.uk, alexosutto@gmail.com

  Affiliations Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0311-7883

  ⨯
• Dan Strickland,

  Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation 110, 205 1st Street, Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada

  ⨯
• Jacob Lachapelle,

  Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

  ⨯
• Robert G. Young,

  Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

  ⨯
• Robert Hanner,

  Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

  ⨯
• Daniel F. Brunton,

  Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Beaty Centre for Species Discovery and Botany Section, Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  ⨯
• Jeffrey H. Skevington,

  Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  ⨯
• Nikole E. Freeman,

  Roles Conceptualization, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliations Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom, Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America

  ⨯
• D. Ryan Norris

  Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4874-1425

  ⨯