The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs?
Animals that scavenge in and around human settlements need to utilise a broad range of resources, and thus generalist scavengers are likely to be better adapted to human-dominated habitats. In India, free-ranging dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) live in close proximity with humans in diverse habitats...
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ftdatacite:10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632.v1 2023-05-15T15:49:53+02:00 The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? D. Bhattacharjee M. Paul A. Singh P.R. Gade P. Shrestha Anandarup Bhadra Anindita Bhadra 2015 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632.v1 https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/dataset/The_meat_of_the_matter_a_rule_of_thumb_for_scavenging_dogs_/1568632/1 unknown Taylor & Francis https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2015.1076526 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY Science Policy Biological Sciences Ecology FOS Biological sciences Earth and Environmental Sciences Evolutionary Biology Neuroscience dataset Dataset 2015 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632.v1 https://doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2015.1076526 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Animals that scavenge in and around human settlements need to utilise a broad range of resources, and thus generalist scavengers are likely to be better adapted to human-dominated habitats. In India, free-ranging dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) live in close proximity with humans in diverse habitats, from forest fringes to metropolises, and are heavily dependent on humans for their food. It has been argued that the ability to digest carbohydrates was one of the driving forces for dog domestication. Though dogs are better adapted to digest carbohydrates than other canids, pet dogs show a clear preference for animal proteins. Our observations on streets of urban and semi-urban localities show that the free-ranging dogs are scavengers which primarily receive carbohydrate-rich food from humans. Their source for animal protein is typically garbage bins and leftovers, and such resources are rare. Using a series of field-based experiments, we test if the free-ranging dogs have adapted to a generalist scavenging lifestyle by losing preference for animal protein. Our experiments show that the free-ranging dogs, which are descendants of the decidedly carnivorous gray wolf ( Canis lupus lupus ), have retained a clear preference for meat, which is manifested by their choice of anything that smells of meat, irrespective of the actual nutrient content. The plasticity in their diet probably fosters efficient scavenging in a competitive environment, while a rule of thumb for preferentially acquiring specific nutrients enables them to sequester proteins from the carbohydrate-dominated environment. Dataset Canis lupus gray wolf DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Thumb ENVELOPE(-64.259,-64.259,-65.247,-65.247) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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ftdatacite |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Science Policy Biological Sciences Ecology FOS Biological sciences Earth and Environmental Sciences Evolutionary Biology Neuroscience |
spellingShingle |
Science Policy Biological Sciences Ecology FOS Biological sciences Earth and Environmental Sciences Evolutionary Biology Neuroscience D. Bhattacharjee M. Paul A. Singh P.R. Gade P. Shrestha Anandarup Bhadra Anindita Bhadra The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
topic_facet |
Science Policy Biological Sciences Ecology FOS Biological sciences Earth and Environmental Sciences Evolutionary Biology Neuroscience |
description |
Animals that scavenge in and around human settlements need to utilise a broad range of resources, and thus generalist scavengers are likely to be better adapted to human-dominated habitats. In India, free-ranging dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) live in close proximity with humans in diverse habitats, from forest fringes to metropolises, and are heavily dependent on humans for their food. It has been argued that the ability to digest carbohydrates was one of the driving forces for dog domestication. Though dogs are better adapted to digest carbohydrates than other canids, pet dogs show a clear preference for animal proteins. Our observations on streets of urban and semi-urban localities show that the free-ranging dogs are scavengers which primarily receive carbohydrate-rich food from humans. Their source for animal protein is typically garbage bins and leftovers, and such resources are rare. Using a series of field-based experiments, we test if the free-ranging dogs have adapted to a generalist scavenging lifestyle by losing preference for animal protein. Our experiments show that the free-ranging dogs, which are descendants of the decidedly carnivorous gray wolf ( Canis lupus lupus ), have retained a clear preference for meat, which is manifested by their choice of anything that smells of meat, irrespective of the actual nutrient content. The plasticity in their diet probably fosters efficient scavenging in a competitive environment, while a rule of thumb for preferentially acquiring specific nutrients enables them to sequester proteins from the carbohydrate-dominated environment. |
format |
Dataset |
author |
D. Bhattacharjee M. Paul A. Singh P.R. Gade P. Shrestha Anandarup Bhadra Anindita Bhadra |
author_facet |
D. Bhattacharjee M. Paul A. Singh P.R. Gade P. Shrestha Anandarup Bhadra Anindita Bhadra |
author_sort |
D. Bhattacharjee |
title |
The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
title_short |
The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
title_full |
The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
title_fullStr |
The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
title_full_unstemmed |
The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
title_sort |
meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? |
publisher |
Taylor & Francis |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632.v1 https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/dataset/The_meat_of_the_matter_a_rule_of_thumb_for_scavenging_dogs_/1568632/1 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-64.259,-64.259,-65.247,-65.247) |
geographic |
Thumb |
geographic_facet |
Thumb |
genre |
Canis lupus gray wolf |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus gray wolf |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2015.1076526 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632 |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632.v1 https://doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2015.1076526 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1568632 |
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