Snow Leopard Dietary Preferences and Livestock Predation Revealed by Fecal DNA Metabarcoding: No Evidence for Apparent Competition Between Wild and Domestic Prey
Snow Leopard Dietary Preferences and Livestock Predation Revealed by Fecal DNA Metabarcoding: No Evidence for Apparent Competition Between Wild and Domestic Prey
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粪便 DNA 元条形码揭示雪豹的饮食偏好和牲畜捕食：没有证据表明野生和家养猎物之间存在明显竞争
DOI：
10.3389/fevo.2021.783546
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Meng Yao
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Qi Lu;L. Xiao;Chen Cheng;Zhi Lu;Jindong Zhao;Meng Yao
准确评估野生食肉动物对牲畜的掠夺模式和驱动因素对于设计有效的缓解策略以减少人类与野生动物的冲突至关重要。雪豹（Panthera uncia）的活动范围广泛地与牧民的土地使用和牲畜捕食重叠，但雪豹消耗牲畜的生态决定因素仍然不清楚。我们在青藏高原三江源地区的七个地点调查了雪豹的饮食习惯，该地区是该物种全球分布的中心。雪豹的丰度，野生猎物的组成，和牲畜密度在这些网站之间的变化，从而使我们能够测试各种因素对雪豹的饮食和牲畜捕食的影响。使用DNA元条形码，我们从351个经过基因验证的雪豹粪便样本中获得了高分辨率的饮食数据。然后，我们分析了雪豹的猎物偏好，并研究了与其牲畜消费相关的生态因素。在整个网站，雪豹的猎物主要由野生有蹄类动物（平均= 81.5%的饮食序列），特别是bharal（Pseudois nayaur），并辅以牲畜（7.62%）和较小的哺乳动物（土拨鼠，鼠兔，小鼠; 10.7%）。根据雪豹的密度，相对于牲畜，雪豹表现出强烈的偏爱。有趣的是，雪豹对牲畜的消费比例和总消费量都随着当地牲畜生物量的增加而线性增加，但与牲畜密度无关。这一点，再加上轻微的负面关系与bharal密度，支持明显的促进野生和国内猎物。我们还发现，雪豹和巴拉尔的人口密度之间存在显着的正相关关系，但这些密度与牲畜密度呈轻微的负相关关系。我们的研究结果强调了足够的野生有蹄类动物丰富的保护可行的雪豹种群的重要性。此外，迫切需要保护牲畜，以减少雪豹掠夺造成的损失，特别是在当地牲畜丰富的地方。
Accurate assessments of the patterns and drivers of livestock depredation by wild carnivores are vital for designing effective mitigation strategies to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Snow leopard’s (Panthera uncia) range extensively overlaps pastoralist land-use and livestock predation there is widely reported, but the ecological determinants of livestock consumption by snow leopards remain obscure. We investigated snow leopard dietary habits at seven sites across the Sanjiangyuan region of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP), an area central to the species’ global range. Snow leopard abundance, wild prey composition, and livestock density varied among those sites, thus allowing us to test the effects of various factors on snow leopard diet and livestock predation. Using DNA metabarcoding, we obtained highly resolved dietary data from 351 genetically verified snow leopard fecal samples. We then analyzed the prey preferences of snow leopards and examined ecological factors related to their livestock consumption. Across the sites, snow leopard prey was composed mainly of wild ungulates (mean = 81.5% of dietary sequences), particularly bharal (Pseudois nayaur), and supplemented with livestock (7.62%) and smaller mammals (marmots, pikas, mice; 10.7%). Snow leopards showed a strong preference for bharal, relative to livestock, based on their densities. Interestingly, both proportional and total livestock consumption by snow leopards increased linearly with local livestock biomass, but not with livestock density. That, together with a slight negative relationship with bharal density, supports apparent facilitation between wild and domestic prey. We also found a significant positive correlation between population densities of snow leopard and bharal, yet those densities showed slight negative relationships with livestock density. Our results highlight the importance of sufficient wild ungulate abundance to the conservation of viable snow leopard populations. Additionally, livestock protection is critically needed to reduce losses to snow leopard depredation, especially where local livestock abundances are high.