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Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey
The estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is one of the largest and most widespread crocodilians in the world. Although considered an apex species, the role of the estuarine crocodile in aquatic foodwebs is poorly understood; we know what crocodiles ingest, but not what nourishes them. In this st...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991389/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29874276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197159 |
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author | Adame, Maria Fernanda Jardine, Timothy D. Fry, Brian Valdez, Dominic Lindner, Garry Nadji, Jonathan Bunn, Stuart E. |
author_facet | Adame, Maria Fernanda Jardine, Timothy D. Fry, Brian Valdez, Dominic Lindner, Garry Nadji, Jonathan Bunn, Stuart E. |
author_sort | Adame, Maria Fernanda |
collection | PubMed |
description | The estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is one of the largest and most widespread crocodilians in the world. Although considered an apex species, the role of the estuarine crocodile in aquatic foodwebs is poorly understood; we know what crocodiles ingest, but not what nourishes them. In this study, we used a combination of stable isotope measurements (δ(13)C, δ(15)N, and δ(34)S) and direct feeding observations to identify the source of nutrition of estuarine crocodiles in Kakadu National Park, Northern Australia. Our results show that most crocodiles sampled (size 850 – 4200mm, with 76% of them being > 2.5 m) consume a large variety of prey, however a large proportion of their nutrition is derived from terrestrial prey. Introduced species such as water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) and pigs (Sus scrofa) could contribute between 53 and 84% to the nutrition of the sampled crocodiles. The isotopic composition of large crocodiles (total length > 3 m) suggested possible increase in marine prey consumption with size (R(2) = 0.30; p = 0.005). Additionally, we found crocodiles sampled in the dry season had on average higher terrestrial contributions compared to crocodiles sampled during the wet season (84.1 ± 2.4% versus 55.4 ± 7.0%). Overall, we found that terrestrial prey are important source of nutrition for many crocodiles in this region where introduced herbivorous mammals are abundant. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5991389 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59913892018-06-08 Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey Adame, Maria Fernanda Jardine, Timothy D. Fry, Brian Valdez, Dominic Lindner, Garry Nadji, Jonathan Bunn, Stuart E. PLoS One Research Article The estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is one of the largest and most widespread crocodilians in the world. Although considered an apex species, the role of the estuarine crocodile in aquatic foodwebs is poorly understood; we know what crocodiles ingest, but not what nourishes them. In this study, we used a combination of stable isotope measurements (δ(13)C, δ(15)N, and δ(34)S) and direct feeding observations to identify the source of nutrition of estuarine crocodiles in Kakadu National Park, Northern Australia. Our results show that most crocodiles sampled (size 850 – 4200mm, with 76% of them being > 2.5 m) consume a large variety of prey, however a large proportion of their nutrition is derived from terrestrial prey. Introduced species such as water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) and pigs (Sus scrofa) could contribute between 53 and 84% to the nutrition of the sampled crocodiles. The isotopic composition of large crocodiles (total length > 3 m) suggested possible increase in marine prey consumption with size (R(2) = 0.30; p = 0.005). Additionally, we found crocodiles sampled in the dry season had on average higher terrestrial contributions compared to crocodiles sampled during the wet season (84.1 ± 2.4% versus 55.4 ± 7.0%). Overall, we found that terrestrial prey are important source of nutrition for many crocodiles in this region where introduced herbivorous mammals are abundant. Public Library of Science 2018-06-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5991389/ /pubmed/29874276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197159 Text en © 2018 Adame 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Adame, Maria Fernanda Jardine, Timothy D. Fry, Brian Valdez, Dominic Lindner, Garry Nadji, Jonathan Bunn, Stuart E. Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
title | Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
title_full | Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
title_fullStr | Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
title_full_unstemmed | Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
title_short | Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
title_sort | estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991389/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29874276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197159 |
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