Metabarcoding of fecal DNA reveals the broad and flexible diet of a globally endangered bird

Abstract

Knowing the diet of endangered wild animals is a prerequisite for species-specific conservation and habitat management. The Sichuan partridge Arborophila rufipectus is a globally endangered Galliformes species endemic to the mountains of southwest China. Existing information on the diet of this species is biased and fragmented owing to traditional observation methods. Little is known about their dietary composition or how they respond to temporal variations in food resources throughout the year. In this study, a dietary analysis was performed on 60 fecal samples using DNA Metabarcoding of invertebrates and plants to determine the primary animal and plant components of the diet across three critical periods of adult life history (breeding, post-breeding wandering, and overwintering). Preys from the dipteran order, followed by the lepidopteran and araneaen spp. were the predominant, animal-derived foods. Symplocos, Rubus, Celastrus, Holboellia, and Actinidia spp. supply a large abundance of fruits and seeds for this omnivorous bird. Substantial temporal dietary changes among the three periods and a general shift toward lower dietary diversity during the breeding season was observed, suggesting that the Sichuan partridge can adjust their diet according to the availability of food resources and their own needs. Characterizing the composition and seasonal changes in Sichuan partridge diets informs the habitat management of native flora (the plant taxa that can generate berries and seeds, such as Symplocos, Rubus, Celastrus and Holboellia, which are likely of conservation interest) to achieve full life-cycle conservation.

Decision Support Tool Grensmaas: Ontwikkeling van een DST-prototype ter ondersteuning van doelstellingen Hoogwaterveiligheid en Natuurontwikkeling in de Gemeenschappelijke Maas

“…Het zou uitermate nuttig zijn om uitwerpselen te verzamelen van zowel volwassen als jonge Grutto's en Wulpen en via DNA metabarcoding aanwezige prooitaxa te bepalen, zoals al voor andere insectenetende vogelsoorten gebeurt is (bv. Evens et al, 2020;Rytkönen et al, 2019;Tang et al, 2022). Er is ook een recente studie die deze methode reeds toepaste op Grutto (Huang et al, 2022), maar met een erg lage sample size (2 exemplaren) en in een marien milieu.…”

Multi‐marker DNA metabarcoding reveals spatial and sexual variation in the diet of a scarce woodland bird

“…Metabarcoding therefore has the potential to improve our knowledge of the diet of omnivorous woodland passerines. Despite this, studies focusing on omnivorous birds are rare (but see da Silva et al, 2020 ; Spence et al, 2022 ; Tang et al, 2022 ). There are currently no studies which have used metabarcoding to reconstruct the diet of UK Hawfinch populations.…”