{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,2]],"date-time":"2026-06-02T07:51:39Z","timestamp":1780386699341,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,7]],"date-time":"2023-04-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1680825600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Italian National Operative Programme \u201cResearch and Innovation\u201d","award":["D31B21008270007"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["D31B21008270007"]}]},{"name":"Italian National Operative Programme \u201cResearch and Innovation\u201d","award":["FRA-2018"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FRA-2018"]}]},{"name":"University of Genoa","award":["D31B21008270007"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["D31B21008270007"]}]},{"name":"University of Genoa","award":["FRA-2018"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FRA-2018"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Animals"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Exploitative competition and interference competition differ in the way they affect re-source availability for competitors: in the former, organisms reduce resource availability for the competitors; in the latter, one organism actively prevents the competitor from accessing resources, independently of their availability. Our aim is to test for the presence of foraging competition in two forest-dwelling salamanders in Italy: Speleomantes strinatii and Salamandrina perspicillata. We also aim at testing for size-mediated competition. We obtained stomach contents from 191 sampled individuals by means of stomach flushing at 8 sampling sites where both species occur. We focused our analysis on the core prey taxa shared by both species: Collembola and Acarina. We found that the foraging activity of S. perspicillata is positively affected by body size and negatively affected by potential competitor\u2019s activity on the forest floor during the sampling, which also significantly weakened the positive relationship with body size. These results suggest the presence of an interference\/interaction occurring between the two species and affecting the foraging activity of S. perspicillata. This competitive interaction is size mediated and configured as interference competition rather than exploitative competition.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ani13081281","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,10]],"date-time":"2023-04-10T03:15:57Z","timestamp":1681096557000},"page":"1281","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Size-Mediated Trophic Interactions in Two Syntopic Forest Salamanders"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4273-6182","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrea","family":"Costa","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Earth, Environment and Life Sciences (DISTAV), University of Genova, Corso Europa 26, 16132 Genova, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3386-0459","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Giacomo","family":"Rosa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Earth, Environment and Life Sciences (DISTAV), University of Genova, Corso Europa 26, 16132 Genova, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2247-8307","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sebastiano","family":"Salvidio","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Earth, Environment and Life Sciences (DISTAV), University of Genova, Corso Europa 26, 16132 Genova, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1292","DOI":"10.1126\/science.131.3409.1292","article-title":"The Competitive Exclusion Principle: An idea that took a century to be born has implications in ecology, economics, and genetics","volume":"131","author":"Hardin","year":"1960","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"426","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1193954","article-title":"The newest synthesis: Understanding the interplay of evolutionary and ecological dynamics","volume":"331","author":"Schoener","year":"2011","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2541","DOI":"10.1098\/rspb.2002.2181","article-title":"Interference competition and species coexistence","volume":"269","author":"Amarasekare","year":"2002","journal-title":"Proc. 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