Diets of Marsh Rabbits, 
Sylvilagus palustris (Lagomorpha: Leporidae), 
from Coastal Islands in Southeastern North Carolina 
Kevin W. Markham and Wm. David Webster 
Department of Biological Sciences, 
University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 
Wilmington, North Carolina 28403 
ABSTRACT — Dietary analyses were conducted for marsh rabbits from 
barrier and dredge-material islands near Wilmington, North Caro- 
lina. Marsh rabbits primarily consumed upland vegetation, espe- 
cially during the summer and winter, and they ate a wide variety 
of plant species available to them. Forbs and grasses comprised 
the bulk of the diet; shrub utilization was low, even in winter. 
Diets of marsh rabbits, Sylvilagus palustris (Bachman), are poorly 
known despite the local abundance of these herbivores in wetland 
habitats in the southeastern United States. Blair (1936) conducted 
feeding trials in Florida using captive marsh rabbits to check for 
acceptance of particular wetland plants, and his results have been 
cited by others describing the diet of marsh rabbits (Chapman and 
Willner 1981, Chapman and Feldhamer 1982). Diets of free-ranging 
marsh rabbits, however, have not been described in any part of the 
range of the species. The purpose of this investigation, therefore, 
was to determine the diets of marsh rabbits inhabiting estuarine 
islands in southeastern North Carolina. 
METHODS 
Islands in southeastern North Carolina are of two types: low, 
narrow barrier islands separated from the mainland by marshes and 
the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, and small oval-shaped islands 
adjacent to the Waterway where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 
deposits dredged material. Because vegetative zonation and species 
composition on these islands are similar (Parnell and Soots 1979, 
Hosier and Eaton 1980) and marsh rabbits are common to abundant 
on both island types, we combined data from both island types to 
increase sample sizes. 
Floristic diversity and abundance (from Braun-Blanquet 
approximations for 0.25-m 2 plots at 3-m intervals along four to six 
transects across each island) were used to describe the plant com- 
munities from which rabbits were taken. Six communities were de- 
fined: low marsh, high marsh, grass flat, shrub thicket, dune, and 
berm. Reference slides for 78 species of plants taken along these 
transects were prepared for use in comparisons with plant fragments 
Brimleyana 19:147-154, December 1993 
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