Metabarcoding data analysis revealed the plant dietary variation of long-tailed macaque Macaca fascicularis (Cercopithecidae, Cercopithecinae) living in disturbed habitats in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

The long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) has a wide range in both Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. Although the primates are especially vulnerable to habitat alterations, this primate lives in disturbed habitats due to human-induced land-use. Thus, this study presents a faecal metabarcoding approach to clarify the plant diet of long-tailed macaques from five locations in Peninsular Malaysia to represent fragmented forest, forest edge, island and recreational park habitats. We extracted genomic DNA from 53 long-tailed macaque faecal samples. We found 47 orders, 126 families, 609 genera and 818 species across these five localities. A total of 113 plant families were consumed by long-tailed macaques in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 61 in the Malaysia Genome and Vaccine Institute, 33 in Langkawi Island, 53 in Redang Island and 44 in the Cenderawasih Cave. Moraceae (33.24%) and Fabaceae (13.63%) were the most common families consumed by long-tailed macaques from the study localities. We found that habitat type impacted diet composition, indicating the flexibility of foraging activities. This research findings provide an understanding of plant dietary diversity and the adaptability of this macaque with the current alteration level that applies to long-tailed macaque conservation management interest in the future.

Interspecific variation in the diet of Symphalangus syndactylus and Macaca nemestrina at Genting Highlands, Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia

“…), which accounted for 74.76% of its total diet. Unlike its sister species, the family Fabaceae and Moraceae is the preferred diet for both Macaca fascicularis and Macaca artoides ( Osman et al 2020 , Osman et al 2022 ). However, notably, M. nemestrina in the Genting Highlands also preferred Ficus sp., which is a similar preferred diet for both M. fascicularis and M. arctoides .…”

“…Its P6 loop region is sufficient to perform DNA metabarcoding on a degraded sample, such as a faecal sample ( Taberlet et al 2007 ). In recent years, there have been a few mammal diet studies that have successfully used the DNA metabarcoding approach in Malaysia, such as Osman et al (2020) , Osman et al (2022) [primate], Abdullah-Fauzi et al (2022) and Mohd-Radzi et al 2022 [elephant]. This implies that DNA metabarcoding offers a wider and more powerful diet assessment compared to direct observation.…”

High-throughput DNA metabarcoding for determining the gut microbiome of captive critically endangered Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) during fasting

“…All next-generation sequencing (NGS) data were uploaded into the National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI), under the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) Bioproject accession number PRJNA896752 and the individual Biosample accession numbers corresponding to each sample indicated in Table 1 . Quality assessment of raw reads was performed using fastqc; thereafter, primers and adaptors were removed using Cutadapt 3.5 ( Martin 2011 , Osman et al 2022 ). Then, the paired-read end was processed and merged using DADA2 V.1.18 ( Callahan et al 2016 ).…”

Analysis of winter diet in Guizhou golden monkey (Rhinopithecus brelichi) using DNA metabarcoding data

“…Accordingly, DNA metabarcoding of faecal samples has been used to characterize the plant diet of primates. The species composition of the plant diet of Macaca arctoides was identified (Osman et al., 2020), changes in the plant diet of Chlorocebus pygerythrus were detected during the dry and rainy seasons (Brun et al., 2022), and guidelines for habitat management were provided (Osman et al., 2022). Moreover, DNA metabarcoding has been used for identifying the animal component of primate diets.…”