Food analysis and resource partitioning in a lizard guild of the Sonoran Desert, Mexico

The food niche relationships of a lizard community of an arid zone in the State ofSonora, NW Mexico, were studied during 1982, 1983 and 1984. The species with highly specialized diets showed little variation in food habits during those years, while the opposite occurred with more eclectic predators. The expected correlation between the size of the predator and the size of its prey can also be biased by food specialization. Food niche overlaps, based on analysis of the volume and the taxonomic status of the prey at a family level, were persistently low. The role that food niche partitioning could play in determining the organization of this lizard guild is discussed