Assessing the utility of metabarcoding for diet analyses of the omnivorous wild pig (Sus scrofa).

ABSTRACT: Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are an invasive species descended from both domestic swine and Eurasian wild boar that was introduced to North America during the early 1500s. Wild pigs have since become the most abundant free-ranging exotic ungulate in the United States. Large and ever-increasing populations of wild pigs negatively impact agriculture, sport hunting, and native ecosystems with costs estimated to exceed $1.5 billion/year within the United States. Wild pigs are recognized as generalist feeders, able to exploit a broad array of locally available food resources, yet their feeding behaviors remain poorly understood as partially digested material is often unidentifiable through traditional stomach content analyses. To overcome the limitation of stomach content analyses, we develope

SUBMITTER: Robeson MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5756863 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature