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Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)

Top-predators play stabilising roles in island food webs, including Fraser Island, Australia. Subsidising generalist predators with human-sourced food could disrupt this balance, but has been proposed to improve the overall health of the island’s dingo (Canis lupus dingo) population, which is allege...

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Autores principales: Behrendorff, Linda, Leung, Luke K.-P., McKinnon, Allan, Hanger, Jon, Belonje, Grant, Tapply, Jenna, Jones, Darryl, Allen, Benjamin L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4806299/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27009879
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep23469
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author Behrendorff, Linda
Leung, Luke K.-P.
McKinnon, Allan
Hanger, Jon
Belonje, Grant
Tapply, Jenna
Jones, Darryl
Allen, Benjamin L.
author_facet Behrendorff, Linda
Leung, Luke K.-P.
McKinnon, Allan
Hanger, Jon
Belonje, Grant
Tapply, Jenna
Jones, Darryl
Allen, Benjamin L.
author_sort Behrendorff, Linda
collection PubMed
description Top-predators play stabilising roles in island food webs, including Fraser Island, Australia. Subsidising generalist predators with human-sourced food could disrupt this balance, but has been proposed to improve the overall health of the island’s dingo (Canis lupus dingo) population, which is allegedly ‘starving’ or in ‘poor condition’. We assess this hypothesis by describing the diet and health of dingoes on Fraser Island from datasets collected between 2001 and 2015. Medium-sized mammals (such as bandicoots) and fish were the most common food items detected in dingo scat records. Stomach contents records revealed additional information on diet, such as the occurrence of human-sourced foods. Trail camera records highlighted dingo utilisation of stranded marine fauna, particularly turtles and whales. Mean adult body weights were higher than the national average, body condition scores and abundant-excessive fat reserves indicated a generally ideal-heavy physical condition, and parasite loads were low and comparable to other dingo populations. These data do not support hypotheses that Fraser Island dingoes have restricted diets or are in poor physical condition. Rather, they indicate that dingoes on Fraser Island are capable of exploiting a diverse array of food sources which contributes to the vast majority of dingoes being of good-excellent physical condition.
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spelling pubmed-48062992016-03-24 Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari) Behrendorff, Linda Leung, Luke K.-P. McKinnon, Allan Hanger, Jon Belonje, Grant Tapply, Jenna Jones, Darryl Allen, Benjamin L. Sci Rep Article Top-predators play stabilising roles in island food webs, including Fraser Island, Australia. Subsidising generalist predators with human-sourced food could disrupt this balance, but has been proposed to improve the overall health of the island’s dingo (Canis lupus dingo) population, which is allegedly ‘starving’ or in ‘poor condition’. We assess this hypothesis by describing the diet and health of dingoes on Fraser Island from datasets collected between 2001 and 2015. Medium-sized mammals (such as bandicoots) and fish were the most common food items detected in dingo scat records. Stomach contents records revealed additional information on diet, such as the occurrence of human-sourced foods. Trail camera records highlighted dingo utilisation of stranded marine fauna, particularly turtles and whales. Mean adult body weights were higher than the national average, body condition scores and abundant-excessive fat reserves indicated a generally ideal-heavy physical condition, and parasite loads were low and comparable to other dingo populations. These data do not support hypotheses that Fraser Island dingoes have restricted diets or are in poor physical condition. Rather, they indicate that dingoes on Fraser Island are capable of exploiting a diverse array of food sources which contributes to the vast majority of dingoes being of good-excellent physical condition. Nature Publishing Group 2016-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4806299/ /pubmed/27009879 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep23469 Text en Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Behrendorff, Linda
Leung, Luke K.-P.
McKinnon, Allan
Hanger, Jon
Belonje, Grant
Tapply, Jenna
Jones, Darryl
Allen, Benjamin L.
Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)
title Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)
title_full Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)
title_fullStr Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)
title_full_unstemmed Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)
title_short Insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on Fraser Island (K’gari)
title_sort insects for breakfast and whales for dinner: the diet and body condition of dingoes on fraser island (k’gari)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4806299/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27009879
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep23469
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