Food from faeces: Evaluating the efficacy of scat DNA metabarcoding in dietary analyses.

ABSTRACT: Scat DNA metabarcoding is increasingly being used to track the feeding ecology of elusive wildlife species. This approach has greatly increased the resolution and detection success of prey items contained in scats when compared with other classical methods. However, there have been few studies that have systematically tested the applicability and reliability of this approach to study the diet of large felids species in the wild. Here we assessed the effectiveness of this approach in the cheetah Acinonyx jubatus. We tested how scat degradation, meal size, prey species consumed and feeding day (the day a particular prey was consumed) influenced prey DNA detection success in captive cheetahs. We demonstrated that it is possible to obtain diet information from 60-day old scats using genetic ap

SUBMITTER: Thuo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6980833 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature