DNA metabarcoding illuminates dietary niche partitioning by African large herbivores
DNA metabarcoding illuminates dietary niche partitioning by African large herbivores
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1503283112
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发表时间：
2015-06-30
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Pringle, Robert M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kartzinel, Tyler R.;Chen, Patricia A.;Pringle, Robert M.
生态位划分有利于物种在资源有限的世界中共存，从而丰富生物多样性。几十年来，生物学家一直试图了解大型哺乳动物食草动物（LMH）的不同组合如何分配食物资源。已经确定了几个互补的机制，包括草与非草的差异消费和使用同一植物的不同部分的时空分层。然而，在何种程度上LMH分区食用植物物种在很大程度上是未知的，因为全面的物种水平的识别是非常困难的传统方法。我们使用DNA元条码量化饮食的宽度，组成，并在半干旱的非洲稀树草原7丰富的LMH物种（6野生，国内）的重叠。这些物种的范围从几乎排他性的食草动物到几乎排他性的浏览者：从平均序列相对读段丰度（RRA）推断的草消耗量范围从>99%（平原斑马）到>99%（平原斑马）。
Niche partitioning facilitates species coexistence in a world of limited resources, thereby enriching biodiversity. For decades, biologists have sought to understand how diverse assemblages of large mammalian herbivores (LMH) partition food resources. Several complementary mechanisms have been identified, including differential consumption of grasses versus nongrasses and spatiotemporal stratification in use of different parts of the same plant. However, the extent to which LMH partition food-plant species is largely unknown because comprehensive species-level identification is prohibitively difficult with traditional methods. We used DNA metabarcoding to quantify diet breadth, composition, and overlap for seven abundant LMH species (six wild, one domestic) in semiarid African savanna. These species ranged from almost-exclusive grazers to almost-exclusive browsers: Grass consumption inferred from mean sequence relative read abundance (RRA) ranged from >99% (plains zebra) to