Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis
Abstract Apennine brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) survive in an isolated and critically endangered population, and their food habits have been studied using traditional scat analysis. To complement current dietary knowledge, we applied Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) to non-invasively collected...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:10a0873d47f8474abffe284b792b02b6 2023-05-15T18:42:17+02:00 Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis Giulio Careddu Paolo Ciucci Stella Mondovì Edoardo Calizza Loreto Rossi Maria Letizia Costantini 2021-07-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y https://doaj.org/article/10a0873d47f8474abffe284b792b02b6 EN eng Nature Portfolio https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322 doi:10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y 2045-2322 https://doaj.org/article/10a0873d47f8474abffe284b792b02b6 Scientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-16 (2021) Medicine R Science Q article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y 2022-12-31T11:23:48Z Abstract Apennine brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) survive in an isolated and critically endangered population, and their food habits have been studied using traditional scat analysis. To complement current dietary knowledge, we applied Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) to non-invasively collected bear hairs that had been individually recognized through multilocus genotyping. We analysed carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotopes of hair sections and bear key foods in a Bayesian mixing models framework to reconstruct the assimilated diet on a seasonal basis and to assess gender and management status effects. In total, we analysed 34 different seasonal bear key foods and 35 hair samples belonging to 27 different bears (16 females and 11 males) collected during a population survey in 2014. Most bears showed wide δ15N and δ13C ranges and individual differences in seasonal isotopic patterns. Vegetable matter (herbs, fleshy fruits and hard mast) represented the major component of the assimilated diet across the dietary seasons, whereas vegetable crops were rarely and C4 plants (i.e., corn) never consumed. We confirmed an overall low consumption of large mammals by Apennine bears consistently between sexes, with highest values in spring followed by early summer but null in the other seasons. We also confirmed that consumption of fleshy fruits peaked in late summer, when wild predominated over cultivated fleshy fruits, even though the latter tended to be consumed in higher proportion in autumn. Male bears had higher δ 15N values than females in spring and autumn. Our findings also hint at additional differences in the assimilated diet between sexes, with females likely consuming more herbs during spring, ants during early summer, and hard mast during fall compared to males. In addition, although effect sizes were small and credibility intervals overlapped considerably, management bears on average were 0.9‰ lower in δ 13C and 2.9‰ higher in δ 15N compared to non-management bears, with differences in isotopic ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Ursus arctos Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Scientific Reports 11 1 |
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Medicine R Science Q Giulio Careddu Paolo Ciucci Stella Mondovì Edoardo Calizza Loreto Rossi Maria Letizia Costantini Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
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Medicine R Science Q |
description |
Abstract Apennine brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) survive in an isolated and critically endangered population, and their food habits have been studied using traditional scat analysis. To complement current dietary knowledge, we applied Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) to non-invasively collected bear hairs that had been individually recognized through multilocus genotyping. We analysed carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotopes of hair sections and bear key foods in a Bayesian mixing models framework to reconstruct the assimilated diet on a seasonal basis and to assess gender and management status effects. In total, we analysed 34 different seasonal bear key foods and 35 hair samples belonging to 27 different bears (16 females and 11 males) collected during a population survey in 2014. Most bears showed wide δ15N and δ13C ranges and individual differences in seasonal isotopic patterns. Vegetable matter (herbs, fleshy fruits and hard mast) represented the major component of the assimilated diet across the dietary seasons, whereas vegetable crops were rarely and C4 plants (i.e., corn) never consumed. We confirmed an overall low consumption of large mammals by Apennine bears consistently between sexes, with highest values in spring followed by early summer but null in the other seasons. We also confirmed that consumption of fleshy fruits peaked in late summer, when wild predominated over cultivated fleshy fruits, even though the latter tended to be consumed in higher proportion in autumn. Male bears had higher δ 15N values than females in spring and autumn. Our findings also hint at additional differences in the assimilated diet between sexes, with females likely consuming more herbs during spring, ants during early summer, and hard mast during fall compared to males. In addition, although effect sizes were small and credibility intervals overlapped considerably, management bears on average were 0.9‰ lower in δ 13C and 2.9‰ higher in δ 15N compared to non-management bears, with differences in isotopic ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Giulio Careddu Paolo Ciucci Stella Mondovì Edoardo Calizza Loreto Rossi Maria Letizia Costantini |
author_facet |
Giulio Careddu Paolo Ciucci Stella Mondovì Edoardo Calizza Loreto Rossi Maria Letizia Costantini |
author_sort |
Giulio Careddu |
title |
Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
title_short |
Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
title_full |
Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
title_fullStr |
Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
title_full_unstemmed |
Gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
title_sort |
gaining insight into the assimilated diet of small bear populations by stable isotope analysis |
publisher |
Nature Portfolio |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y https://doaj.org/article/10a0873d47f8474abffe284b792b02b6 |
genre |
Ursus arctos |
genre_facet |
Ursus arctos |
op_source |
Scientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-16 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322 doi:10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y 2045-2322 https://doaj.org/article/10a0873d47f8474abffe284b792b02b6 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93507-y |
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Scientific Reports |
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11 |
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