ABSTRACT
As many chapters in this book have discussed, vertebrate carrion is a nutrient-rich, ephemeral resource that is utilized by many different organisms, ranging from vertebrate and invertebrate scavengers to microbes (Janzen 1977; Early and Goff 1986; Braack 1987). The organisms that consume carrion play an important ecological role, as decomposition is vital to ecosystem function (Carter et al. 2007). Without these scavengers, vital elements (especially carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus) that are initially trapped in primary producers (plants) and subsequently concentrated in animal tissues would not be released back into the ecosystem in a timely manner (Putman 1978; Stevenson and Cole 1999; Parmenter and MacMahon 2009).
