Abstract
Large herbivores may affect ecosystem processes and states, but such effects can be difficult to quantify, especially within multispecies assemblages. To better understand such processes and improve our predictive ability of systems undergoing change, herbivore diets can be studied using controlled feeding trials (or cafeteria tests). With some wildlife, such as large herbivores, it is impractical to empirically verify these findings, because it requires visually observing animals in forested environments, which can disturb them from their natural behaviors. Yet, in field-based cafeteria trials it is nearly impossible to differentiate selection between herbivore species that forage on similar plants and make very similar bite marks. However, during browsing ungulates leave saliva residue which includes some buccal cells and DNA that can be extracted for species identification. Here we used a newly developed eDNA-based method (biteDNA) to test the browsing preferences of four sympatric ungulate species in the wild. Overall, food preferences varied between species, but all species strongly preferred deciduous over coniferous species. Our method allows the study of plant-animal interactions in multispecies assemblages at very fine detail.
Highlights
In some areas, across Europe and North America, ungulates are currently expanding their population sizes and ranges
We recently developed a new tool to study ungulate browsing based on the fact that when ungulates chew on shrubs or tree branches, they tend to leave behind enough saliva and environmental DNA for species identification (Nichols et al 2012, 2015; Nichols and Spong 2014)
All deer species were found to browse at our experimental plots
Summary
Across Europe and North America, ungulates are currently expanding their population sizes and ranges These increases can cause dramatic changes to the landscape (Cote et al 2004). Such changes can be difficult to predict, especially in multispecies assemblages containing several ungulate species with different feeding preferences. In forest ecosystems, for example, it is important to understand which trees ungulates prefer and how such preferences may affect plant succession and forestry operations Dietary studies of such relationships are often done using feeding trials ( called cafeteria tests) where different foods are presented to an animal which makes a choice as to what it will eat.
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