High plant diversity stimulates foraging motivation in grazing herbivores
High plant diversity stimulates foraging motivation in grazing herbivores
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高植物多样性刺激食草动物的觅食动机
DOI：
10.1016/j.baae.2015.09.004
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发表时间：
2016-02-01
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Peng, Fugang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Feng, Chao;Ding, Shiwen;Peng, Fugang
放牧生态学研究的主要挑战之一是预测食草动物的食物摄入量。植物物种多样性可能对通才食草动物的食物摄入调节产生重要影响。为了揭示植物物种丰富度影响食物摄入的调节过程，我们调查了绵羊觅食在2小时觅食期间（细分为4个30分钟的间隔），以改变植物物种丰富度（2，4，6，8种）使用室内自助餐厅试验。我们的研究结果表明，高植物多样性显着提高了绵羊的摄入量在每一个石灰间隔，和改善摄入量的程度逐渐加强，觅食进行。此外，我们发现，动态的食物摄入量被修改为植物物种丰富度的增加。在植物多样性较低时，绵羊采食量在开始时最高，然后随着饱足程度的增加而不断下降。但随着植物多样性的增加，这种下降趋势逐渐减缓，绵羊在6种和8种水平的所有时间段内甚至保持了较高和恒定的摄入量。禁食被认为是影响食草动物觅食动机的一个重要内源性因素，随着饱足程度的增加，禁食的影响逐渐减弱。本研究表明，食物多样性可能是一个重要的外源性因素，多样性效应随着时间的推移而显著增加。内源和外源因素的互补作用导致了高的草食动物的摄入量在整个2小时放牧回合的条件下，植物多样性高。我们的结论是，饮食的多样性可以大大增加觅食的动机，提高觅食的动机，特别是在用餐的后期，似乎是刺激食物摄入的草食动物的一个关键因素。我们的研究还表明，保护草地植物多样性不仅对植物生产力非常有益，而且对动物生产力也非常有益。
One of the main challenges of studying grazing ecology is to predict food intake of herbivores. Plant species diversity may have important consequences for regulation of food intake by generalist herbivores. To reveal the regulation processes underlying food intake affected by plant species richness, we investigated sheep foraging during a 2-h foraging period (subdivided into four 30-min intervals) in response to altered plant species richness (2, 4, 6, and 8 species) using an indoor cafeteria trial. Our results showed that high plant diversity significantly improved a sheep's intake during each of the lime intervals, and the extent of improvement for intake gradually strengthened as foraging proceeded. Furthermore, we found that dynamics of food intake was modified as plant species richness increased. At lower plant diversity, intake of sheep was highest at the beginning and then decreased continuously as satiation proceeded. But this decreasing trend gradually slowed as the available plant diversity increased, and sheep even maintained high and constant intake during all intervals for the 6 and 8 species level. Fasting is generally thought to be an important endogenous factor affecting herbivore foraging motivation, and effects of fasting decreased as satiation proceeded. Our study indicated that diet diversity could be an important exogenous factor, and the diversity effects significantly increased with time. The complementary effects of endogenous and exogenous factors resulted in high herbivore intake during the entire 2-h grazing bouts under conditions of high plant diversity. We concluded that diet diversity can greatly increase foraging motivation of sheep, and improving foraging motivation, especially at the later phase of the meal, seems to be a key factor for stimulating food intake by the herbivore. Our study also indicates that conserving grassland plant diversity is critically beneficial not only to plant productivity, but also to animal productivity.