DNA barcoding reveals seasonal shifts in diet and consumption of deep-sea fishes in wedge-tailed shearwaters.

ABSTRACT: The foraging ecology of pelagic seabirds is difficult to characterize because of their large foraging areas. In the face of this difficulty, DNA metabarcoding may be a useful approach to analyze diet compositions and foraging behaviors. Using this approach, we investigated the diet composition and its seasonal variation of a common seabird species on the Ogasawara Islands, Japan: the wedge-tailed shearwater Ardenna pacifica. We collected fecal samples during the prebreeding (N = 73) and rearing (N = 96) periods. The diet composition of wedge-tailed shearwater was analyzed by Ion Torrent sequencing using two universal polymerase chain reaction primers for the 12S and 16S mitochondrial DNA regions that targeted vertebrates and mollusks, respectively. The results of a BLAST search of obtained

SUBMITTER: Komura T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5891018 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature