The composition of the diet of red deer (Cervus elaphus) in a Mediterranean environment: a case of summer nutritional constraint?

Bugalho, Miguel N.; Milne, J. A.

doi:10.1016/s0378-1127(03)00125-7

Cited by 130 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The n-alkane technique was initially developed to estimate DMI of domestic ruminants, but feeding experiments corroborated its reliability for horses (Gudmundsson and Thorhallsdottir, 1998;Stefanon et al, 1999;Stevens et al, 2002). Furthermore, the n-alkane technique has been successfully applied to determine DMI or diet composition in wild herbivores living free or under semi-natural conditions in enclosures (Bugalho et al, 2001;Bugalho and Milne, 2003;Gedir and Hudson, 2000;Hulbert et al, 2001;Martins et al, 2002;Perez et al, 1997).…”

Section: Body Conditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal adjustment of energy budget in a large wild mammal, the Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) I. Energy intake

Kuntz

Kubalek

Ruf

et al. 2006

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Large ruminants respond to changing plant phenology during winter by decreasing voluntary food intake, increasing gut passage time and utilizing body fat reserves. It is uncertain, however, how other large mammals with a non-ruminant digestive physiology cope with winter forage conditions. Therefore, we investigated seasonality of energy intake in a large herbivorous wild mammal, the Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii). Throughout all seasons we used the n-alkane method to measure daily dry matter intake (DMI), diet composition and digestion, and determined an index of gut passage time in horses living under close to natural conditions. DMI correlated positively with its content of crude protein and nitrogen-free extract. Independent of these effects, DMI further varied seasonally with a peak in autumn and a nadir in late winter. Fluctuations of DMI corresponded to the annual change in body condition, which decreased during winter while energy reserves were depleted, and increased during the fattening period. Gut passage time varied in the course of the year and was longer during winter when the diet was high in crude fibre. Nevertheless, changes in gut passage time occurred rather independently of changes in forage composition and DMI, suggesting endogenous control for timely adaption of the digestive strategy to meet predictable changes in forage quality.

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Section: Body Conditionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal adjustment of energy budget in a large wild mammal, the Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) I. Energy intake

Kuntz

Kubalek

Ruf

et al. 2006

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Although we do not have data on availability of individual species, the group of legumes comprised 0.25 of the sward (Bugalho and Milne, 2003) and for legumes such as Trifolium angustifolium or Vicia sativa proportions in the diet were in some cases well above 0.25, suggesting that deer were selecting legumes for their diets. A grazing exclusion experiment in the same study site has also shown that the proportion of legumes were significantly higher in areas where deer grazing had been excluded which again suggests selection of legumes by red deer (Bugalho et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With respect to browse, only a shrub (C. ladanifer) was mandatory in the diet, as estimated by our model, with Q. suber (conditional mandatory) found only in one faecal sample and Q. rotundifolia absent from the diet. In Mediterranean environments, such as that occurring in the Portuguese deer study area, browse species are predominantly consumed by ruminants between mid-summer to the end of summer, when most of the herbage layer is senescent and of low nutritive value (Seligman, 1996;Bugalho and Milne, 2003). Indeed present data was collected in the beginning of June, when a proportion of green plant material was still available in the herbage layer and thus a very high consumption of browse should not be expected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using n-alkanes to estimate diet composition of herbivores: a novel mathematical approach

Bárcia

Bugalho²,

Campagnolo³

et al. 2007

Animal

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N-alkanes are long-chain saturated hydrocarbons occurring in plant cuticles that can be used as chemical markers for estimating the diet composition of herbivores. An important constraint of using n-alkanes to estimate diet composition with currently employed mathematical procedures is that the number of markers must be equal or larger than the number of diet components. This is a considerable limitation when dealing with free-ranging herbivores feeding on complex plant communities. We present a novel approach for the estimation of diet composition using n-alkanes which applies equally to cases where the number of markers is lower, equal or greater than the number of plant species in the diet. The model uses linear programming to estimate the minimum and maximum proportions of each plant in the diet, and avoids the need for grouping species in order to reduce the number of estimated dietary components. We illustrate the model with two data sets of n-alkane content of plants and faeces obtained from a sheep grazing experiment conducted in Australia and a red deer study in Portugal. Our results are consistent with previous studies on those data sets and provide additional information on the proportions of individual species in the diet. Results show that sheep included in the diet high proportions of white clover (from 0.25 to 0.37), and relatively high proportions of grasses (e.g. brome from 0.14 to 0.26) but tended to avoid Lotus spp. (always less than 0.04 of the diet). For red deer we found high proportions of legumes (e.g. Trifolium angustifolium and Vicia sativa reaching maximum proportions of 0.42 and 0.30 of the diet, respectively) with grasses being less important and Cistus ladanifer, a browse, also having relevance (from 0.21 to 0.42 of the diet).

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“…Besides sharply seasonal disparity, illustrated in Fig. 3 by the two different pasture spots, there is also a high inter-annual biomass variation (Bugalho and Milne 2003). Another source of variation in biomass supply relates to topographic gradients that often promote patchiness within pastures (Marques da Silva et al 2008).…”

Section: Sources Of Complexity For Grazing Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overgrazing in the Montado? The need for monitoring grazing pressure at paddock scale

2015

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Montados are presently facing the threat of either abandonment or intensification, and livestock overgrazing has been suspected of contributing to reduced natural regeneration and biodiversity. However, reliable data are to our knowledge, lacking. To avoid potential risks of overgrazing, an adaptive and efficient management is essential. In the present paper we review the main sources of complexity for grazing management linked with interactions among pasture, livestock and human decisions. We describe the overgrazing risk in montados and favour grazing pressure over stocking rate, as a key indicator for monitoring changes and support management decisions. We suggest the use of presently available imaging and communication technologies for assessing pasture dynamics and livestock spatial location. This simple and effective tools used for monitoring the grazing pressure, could provide an efficient day-to-day aid for farm managers' operational use and also for rangeland research through data collection and analysis.

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The composition of the diet of red deer (Cervus elaphus) in a Mediterranean environment: a case of summer nutritional constraint?

Cited by 130 publications

References 16 publications

Seasonal adjustment of energy budget in a large wild mammal, the Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) I. Energy intake

Seasonal adjustment of energy budget in a large wild mammal, the Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) I. Energy intake

Using n-alkanes to estimate diet composition of herbivores: a novel mathematical approach

Overgrazing in the Montado? The need for monitoring grazing pressure at paddock scale

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