Hamad Ibrahim, Delaporte Eric, Raoult Didier, Bittar Fadi
Aix-Marseille Université, URMITE, UM63, CNRS 7278, IRD 198, Inserm 1095, 13005 Marseille, France.
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, University Montpellier 1, UMI 233, Montpellier, France.
Sci Rep. 2014 Mar 27;4:4478. doi: 10.1038/srep04478.
The consumption of insects by apes has previously been reported based on direct observations and/or trail signs in feces. However, DNA-based diet analyses may have the potential to reveal trophic links for these wild species. Herein, we analyzed the insect-diet diversity of 9 feces obtained from three species of African great apes, gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus), using two mitochondrial amplifications for arthropods. A total of 1056 clones were sequenced for Cyt-b and COI gene libraries, which contained 50 and 56 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), respectively. BLAST research revealed that the OTUs belonged to 32 families from 5 orders (Diptera, Isoptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Orthoptera). While ants were not detected by this method, the consumption of flies, beetles, moths, mosquitoes and termites was evident in these samples. Our findings indicate that molecular techniques can be used to analyze insect food items in wild animals.
此前曾基于直接观察和/或粪便中的踪迹迹象报道过猿类食用昆虫的情况。然而，基于DNA的饮食分析可能有潜力揭示这些野生动物的营养联系。在此，我们使用两种针对节肢动物的线粒体扩增方法，分析了从三种非洲大猩猩（西部低地大猩猩、黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩）获取的9份粪便中的昆虫饮食多样性。对细胞色素b（Cyt-b）和细胞色素氧化酶亚基I（COI）基因文库共1056个克隆进行了测序，分别包含50个和56个可操作分类单元（OTU）。BLAST研究表明，这些OTU属于5个目（双翅目、等翅目、鳞翅目、鞘翅目和直翅目）的32个科。虽然该方法未检测到蚂蚁，但在这些样本中明显存在食用苍蝇、甲虫、飞蛾、蚊子和白蚁的情况。我们的研究结果表明，分子技术可用于分析野生动物的昆虫食物种类。
