Oli Chet Bahadur, Panthi Saroj, Subedi Naresh, Ale Gagan, Pant Ganesh, Khanal Gopal, Bhattarai Suman
Ministry of Forests and Environment, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Babarmahal, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Ministry of Forests and Environment, Department of Forests, Babarmahal, Kathmandu, Nepal.
PeerJ. 2018 Jun 25;6:e5102. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5102. eCollection 2018.
It is essential to assess the feeding strategies of threatened species during resource-scarce seasons to understand their dietary niche breadth and inform appropriate habitat management measures. In this study, we examined the diet composition of four-horned antelope (FHA) and , one of the least studied ungulate species, in Banke National Park, Nepal. A total of 53 fresh pellet groups were collected between December 2015 and January 2016 and analyzed using micro-histological fecal analysis technique. First, we prepared 133 micro-histological photographs of different parts of 64 reference plant species. Then we compared 1,590 fragments of 53 fecal samples with photographs of reference plants to assess the percentage of occurrence of different plant species in FHA diet. A total of 30 plant species belonging to 18 different families were identified in fecal samples. Chi-square goodness of fit tests showed that FHA appeared not to feed all plant uniformly. Out of 1,520 identified fragments in fecal samples, 1,300 were browse species and 220 were grass species. Browse represented 85.5% of the identified plant fragments, suggesting that FHA might be adopting a browser strategy at least during winter when grasses are low in abundance and their nutritive quality is poor. Tree species had the highest contribution in the diet (46.55%) followed by shrubs (24.52%). The family Gramineae was consumed in the highest proportion (27.68%) followed by Euphorbiaceae (11.95%). Overall, our results suggest that FHA has the feeding plasticity to adapt to resource fluctuation. Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that dicot plant species-particularly fruit trees and shrubs, which are the major source of nutrients for FHA during resource-lean, dry season-be conserved and natural regeneration of these taxa be promoted.
在资源稀缺的季节评估濒危物种的觅食策略，对于了解它们的饮食生态位宽度并为适当的栖息地管理措施提供依据至关重要。在本研究中，我们调查了尼泊尔班克国家公园中研究最少的有蹄类动物之一——四角羚羊（FHA）的饮食组成。2015年12月至2016年1月期间，共收集了53个新鲜粪便样本组，并采用显微组织学粪便分析技术进行分析。首先，我们制备了64种参考植物不同部位的133张显微组织学照片。然后，我们将53个粪便样本的1590个碎片与参考植物照片进行比较，以评估不同植物物种在FHA饮食中的出现百分比。在粪便样本中总共鉴定出属于18个不同科的30种植物。卡方拟合优度检验表明，FHA似乎并非均匀地食用所有植物。在粪便样本中鉴定出的1520个碎片中，1300个是嫩枝叶类物种，220个是禾本科物种。嫩枝叶类占已鉴定植物碎片的85.5%，这表明FHA至少在冬季可能采取嫩枝叶类觅食策略，此时禾本科植物数量稀少且营养质量较差。树种在饮食中的贡献最大（46.55%），其次是灌木（24.52%）。禾本科的消耗量占比最高（27.68%），其次是大戟科（11.95%）。总体而言，我们的结果表明FHA具有适应资源波动的觅食可塑性。基于本研究的结果，我们建议保护双子叶植物物种，特别是果树和灌木，它们是FHA在资源匮乏的旱季的主要营养来源，并促进这些分类群的自然再生。
