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Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats
The Adélie penguin is the most important animal currently used for ecosystem monitoring in the Southern Ocean. The diet of this species is generally studied by visual analysis of stomach contents; or ratios of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen incorporated into the penguin from its food. There are sig...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3864945/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24358158 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082227 |
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author | Jarman, Simon N. McInnes, Julie C. Faux, Cassandra Polanowski, Andrea M. Marthick, James Deagle, Bruce E. Southwell, Colin Emmerson, Louise |
author_facet | Jarman, Simon N. McInnes, Julie C. Faux, Cassandra Polanowski, Andrea M. Marthick, James Deagle, Bruce E. Southwell, Colin Emmerson, Louise |
author_sort | Jarman, Simon N. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Adélie penguin is the most important animal currently used for ecosystem monitoring in the Southern Ocean. The diet of this species is generally studied by visual analysis of stomach contents; or ratios of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen incorporated into the penguin from its food. There are significant limitations to the information that can be gained from these methods. We evaluated population diet assessment by analysis of food DNA in scats as an alternative method for ecosystem monitoring with Adélie penguins as an indicator species. Scats were collected at four locations, three phases of the breeding cycle, and in four different years. A novel molecular diet assay and bioinformatics pipeline based on nuclear small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) sequencing was used to identify prey DNA in 389 scats. Analysis of the twelve population sample sets identified spatial and temporal dietary change in Adélie penguin population diet. Prey diversity was found to be greater than previously thought. Krill, fish, copepods and amphipods were the most important food groups, in general agreement with other Adélie penguin dietary studies based on hard part or stable isotope analysis. However, our DNA analysis estimated that a substantial portion of the diet was gelatinous groups such as jellyfish and comb jellies. A range of other prey not previously identified in the diet of this species were also discovered. The diverse prey identified by this DNA-based scat analysis confirms that the generalist feeding of Adélie penguins makes them a useful indicator species for prey community composition in the coastal zone of the Southern Ocean. Scat collection is a simple and non-invasive field sampling method that allows DNA-based estimation of prey community differences at many temporal and spatial scales and provides significant advantages over alternative diet analysis approaches. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3864945 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-38649452013-12-19 Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats Jarman, Simon N. McInnes, Julie C. Faux, Cassandra Polanowski, Andrea M. Marthick, James Deagle, Bruce E. Southwell, Colin Emmerson, Louise PLoS One Research Article The Adélie penguin is the most important animal currently used for ecosystem monitoring in the Southern Ocean. The diet of this species is generally studied by visual analysis of stomach contents; or ratios of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen incorporated into the penguin from its food. There are significant limitations to the information that can be gained from these methods. We evaluated population diet assessment by analysis of food DNA in scats as an alternative method for ecosystem monitoring with Adélie penguins as an indicator species. Scats were collected at four locations, three phases of the breeding cycle, and in four different years. A novel molecular diet assay and bioinformatics pipeline based on nuclear small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) sequencing was used to identify prey DNA in 389 scats. Analysis of the twelve population sample sets identified spatial and temporal dietary change in Adélie penguin population diet. Prey diversity was found to be greater than previously thought. Krill, fish, copepods and amphipods were the most important food groups, in general agreement with other Adélie penguin dietary studies based on hard part or stable isotope analysis. However, our DNA analysis estimated that a substantial portion of the diet was gelatinous groups such as jellyfish and comb jellies. A range of other prey not previously identified in the diet of this species were also discovered. The diverse prey identified by this DNA-based scat analysis confirms that the generalist feeding of Adélie penguins makes them a useful indicator species for prey community composition in the coastal zone of the Southern Ocean. Scat collection is a simple and non-invasive field sampling method that allows DNA-based estimation of prey community differences at many temporal and spatial scales and provides significant advantages over alternative diet analysis approaches. Public Library of Science 2013-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3864945/ /pubmed/24358158 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082227 Text en © 2013 Jarman et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Jarman, Simon N. McInnes, Julie C. Faux, Cassandra Polanowski, Andrea M. Marthick, James Deagle, Bruce E. Southwell, Colin Emmerson, Louise Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats |
title | Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats |
title_full | Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats |
title_fullStr | Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats |
title_full_unstemmed | Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats |
title_short | Adélie Penguin Population Diet Monitoring by Analysis of Food DNA in Scats |
title_sort | adélie penguin population diet monitoring by analysis of food dna in scats |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3864945/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24358158 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082227 |
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