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The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus
Vultures are central-place foragers and need to optimize their foraging behaviour to offset travel costs by increasing their energy gain. This process is more obvious in certain vulture species that do not feed their young by regurgitation and so must carry food items back to the nest. The Bearded V...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5556076/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28808326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08812-2 |
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author | Margalida, Antoni Villalba, Daniel |
author_facet | Margalida, Antoni Villalba, Daniel |
author_sort | Margalida, Antoni |
collection | PubMed |
description | Vultures are central-place foragers and need to optimize their foraging behaviour to offset travel costs by increasing their energy gain. This process is more obvious in certain vulture species that do not feed their young by regurgitation and so must carry food items back to the nest. The Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus is the only species with a bone-diet based. We analysed the chemical composition of bones and the age-related changes in their nutritive value to assess the differences in energy content between bones of differing age, body part and species. We found differences between specific anatomical parts, species and the age of the bones. Fresh bones contain 108% as much energy as fresh meat and, interestingly, dry bones retain 90% of the protein found in fresh bones. Dry femurs weighing 140 g retain enough protein to be comparable to 111 g of fresh meat, in energy terms. Compared to meat-eating species, the specialized osteophagous diet of the Bearded Vulture seems to have certain advantages. A better understanding of nutrient levels in food remains could help to improve theoretical foraging models, assist in conservation management, and even improve our understanding of the use of bones by early hominids. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5556076 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-55560762017-08-16 The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus Margalida, Antoni Villalba, Daniel Sci Rep Article Vultures are central-place foragers and need to optimize their foraging behaviour to offset travel costs by increasing their energy gain. This process is more obvious in certain vulture species that do not feed their young by regurgitation and so must carry food items back to the nest. The Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus is the only species with a bone-diet based. We analysed the chemical composition of bones and the age-related changes in their nutritive value to assess the differences in energy content between bones of differing age, body part and species. We found differences between specific anatomical parts, species and the age of the bones. Fresh bones contain 108% as much energy as fresh meat and, interestingly, dry bones retain 90% of the protein found in fresh bones. Dry femurs weighing 140 g retain enough protein to be comparable to 111 g of fresh meat, in energy terms. Compared to meat-eating species, the specialized osteophagous diet of the Bearded Vulture seems to have certain advantages. A better understanding of nutrient levels in food remains could help to improve theoretical foraging models, assist in conservation management, and even improve our understanding of the use of bones by early hominids. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-08-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5556076/ /pubmed/28808326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08812-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Margalida, Antoni Villalba, Daniel The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus |
title | The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus |
title_full | The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus |
title_fullStr | The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus |
title_full_unstemmed | The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus |
title_short | The importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of Bearded vultures Gypaetus barbatus |
title_sort | importance of the nutritive value of old bones in the diet of bearded vultures gypaetus barbatus |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5556076/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28808326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08812-2 |
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