Diet of the Kotschy’s Gecko Mediodactylus kotschyi rumelicus (Müller, 1940) (Reptilia: Gekkonidae) from the City of Plovdiv (Bulgaria)

The seasonal and habitat variation of the trophic spectrum of Kotschy's gecko (Mediodactylus kotschyi rumelicus), as well as the species' trophic niche breadth was studied, based on feces analysis. The material was collected in spring and autumn of 2007 and 2008. The diet of M. kotschyi consists mainly of insects (59.51%), and from the non-insect food we registered Aranea (3.46%) and Acari (4.50%). From the insects, largest share have the ants - Hymenoptera, Formicidae (41.18%), followed by Coleoptera (11.77%), represented mainly by the Curculionidae family and Heteroptera (3.46%). In most of the samples (93.41%) were identified a significant amount of plant residues (32.52% of the total food). The taxonomic contents of the gecko's diet remains almost unchanged in the spring and in the autumn. The index of dominance of Berger-Parker (d) showed a moderate value of 0.41 and the trophic niche breadth, calculated with Simpson's diversity index (1/ Simpson) was 3.53, which is relatively low value.