Prey partitioning and livestock consumption in the world's richest large carnivore assemblage
Prey partitioning and livestock consumption in the world's richest large carnivore assemblage
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.067
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发表时间：
2021-11-22
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Yao, Meng
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Shao, Xinning;Lu, Qi;Yao, Meng
在人类世期间，大型哺乳动物食肉动物在世界各地经历了灾难性的下降。尽管它们在食物网和生态系统动力学中扮演着重要的顶端捕食者角色，但大型食肉动物的详细饮食数据集很少，无法深入了解它们在人类主导的景观中的共存和持久性。在这里，我们提出了细尺度，定量营养相互作用的同域食肉动物从三个组合在中国西南山区，一个全球生物多样性的热点，拥有世界上最丰富的大型食肉动物的多样性，来自1,097个粪便样本的DNA元编码。这些组合包括一个大型食肉动物的行业协会，从零到五个物种沿着与两个中食肉动物物种。我们构建了捕食者-猎物食物网的每一个组合，并确定了95脊椎动物猎物类群和260喂养相互作用的总和。每种肉食动物消耗6-39猎物类群，和饮食多样性下降的食肉动物体重增加跨公会。饮食分区是更明显的大型食肉动物和中型食肉动物公会之间，但不同的大型食肉动物表现出不同的比例利用不同大小的猎物与自己的身体质量。大型食肉动物特别是在西藏占主导地位的地区选择牲畜，那里的土著人民对野生食肉动物表现出很高的容忍度。我们的研究结果表明，饮食生态位划分和牲畜补贴促进了大型食肉动物的同域性和持久性，并对促进人类与食肉动物共存的可持续保护具有关键影响。
Large mammalian carnivores have undergone catastrophic declines during the Anthropocene across the world. Despite their pivotal roles as apex predators in food webs and ecosystem dynamics, few detailed dietary datasets of large carnivores exist, prohibiting deep understanding of their coexistence and persistence in human-dominated landscapes. Here, we present fine-scaled, quantitative trophic interactions among sympatric carnivores from three assemblages in the Mountains of Southwest China, a global biodiversity hotspot harboring the world's richest large-carnivore diversity, derived from DNA metabarcoding of 1,097 fecal samples. These assemblages comprise a large-carnivore guild ranging from zero to five species along with two mesocarnivore species. We constructed predator-prey food webs for each assemblage and identified 95 vertebrate prey taxa and 260 feeding interactions in sum. Each carnivore species consumed 6-39 prey taxa, and dietary diversity decreased with increased carnivore body mass across guilds. Dietary partitioning was more evident between large-carnivore and mesocarnivore guilds, yet different large carnivores showed divergent proportional utilization of different-sized prey correlating with their own body masses. Large carnivores particularly selected livestock in Tibetan-dominated regions, where the indigenous people show high tolerance toward wild predators. Our results suggest that dietary niche partitioning and livestock subsidies facilitate large-carnivore sympatry and persistence and have key implications for sustainable conservation promoting human-carnivore coexistence.