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25 results for “diet specialization”
Exploration and diet specialization in eastern chipmunks - Québec - Canada
<p>Individual diet specialization (IDS) is widespread and can affect the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of populations in significant ways. Extrinsic factors (e.g., food abundance) and individual variation in energetic needs, morphology, or physiology, have been suggested as drivers of IDS. Behavioral traits like exploration and boldness can also impact foraging decisions, although their effects on IDS have not yet been investigated. Specifically, variation among individuals in exploratory behavior and their position along <span>the exploration/exploitation trade-off </span>may <span>affect their foraging behavior, acquisition of food items and home-range size, which may in turn influence</span> the diversity of their diet. Here we analyzed stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in hair of wild eastern chipmunks, <em>Tamias striatus,</em> to investigate the influence of individual differences in exploration on IDS. We found that exploration profile, sex, and yearly fluctuations in food availability explained differences in the degree of dietary specialization and in plasticity in stable carbon and stable nitrogen over time. Thus, consistent individual differences in exploration can be an important driver of within-population niche specialization and could therefore affect within-species competition. Our results highlight the need for a more thorough investigation of the mechanisms underlying the link between individual behavioral differences and diet specialization in wild animal populations.</p>
Code and data for: Human pressures threaten diet specialized mammal communities
<p><span><span>Environmental change is increasing worldwide, and many animal species face anthropogenic threats, especially diet specialists. Yet the degree to which specialist species are currently impacted by environmental change remains poorly understood. Here, we examine how anthropogenic pressures impact dietary specialist species. To achieve this, we calculated an index of diet specialization for the majority of mammal species, based on the Gini inequality coefficient focused on all different dietary items and combined these indices with human footprint data. We used spatially explicit tests to compare the global pattern of mammal diet specialization based on Mantel statistics and a generalized linear mixed model to assess the variations in the percentage of diet specialist species in mammal communities regarding the total species richness, mean values of the human footprint, and the interaction between protected or non-protected areas and the continent. These analyses revealed global patterns in human pressure and its potential impacts on dietary specialist mammal species. We found that areas with many diet specialists in mammal communities are also impacted by high human pressure. Additionally, we found that the global protected area system adequately covers habitat for many mammal diet specialists, but has lower effectiveness in South America, Oceania, North America and Europe compared with Africa and Asia. Finally, we identified potential reservoirs for specialist species – places that contain many highly diet-specialist species and are subject to less human pressure – which may be important for conservation efforts. Our findings highlight limitations with existing conservation efforts and underscore the importance of conserving specialist species.</span></span></p>
Exploration and diet specialization in eastern chipmunks - Québec - Canada
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Individual diet specialization in the spider Tidarren haemorrhoidale (Bertkau, 1880) (Theridiidae)
<p>Data on the article "Individual diet specialization in the spider <em>Tidarren haemorrhoidale</em> (Bertkau, 1880) (Theridiidae)". First column presents spider identification (Spider_ID), second column is prey taxa (Prey_ID), and the third is prey length in mm (Prey_length). The abstract of the article is available below. To use the dataset, cite the article available on Ethology (<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14390310">Ethology - Wiley Online Library</a>).<br> <br> Individual specialization (<em>IS</em>) in resource use is common within populations of several animal species because some individuals can be more efficient than others in obtaining specific food items. Spiders are usually classified as euryphagous predators, but broad diet of populations may result from many individuals specializing in capturing different types of prey. Empirical evidence supporting this pattern, however, is still scarce. In this study, we hypothesized that (1) the diet of individuals of <em>Tidarren haemorrhoidale </em>is more restricted than the population’s diet, and (2) individual diet restrictions are not determined by the spatial distribution of prey types. We collected prey remains of 74 webs of females in a conservation area of the Atlantic Forest. Our results indicated that <em>T. haemorrhoidale </em>could be considered an euryphagous predator because its diet comprised Opiliones, Diplopoda and eight orders of insects. However, spiders exhibited moderate and high degrees of <em>IS</em> for prey size and taxa, respectively. There was no modularity for both prey attributes in the food web, but there was a medium nestedness. Most individuals captured ants, but additional prey taxa were of different orders. There was no correlation between the dissimilarity of prey taxa and the distances between the webs, suggesting that <em>IS</em> did not occur based on the spatial distribution of their potential prey. The diversity of prey defensive strategies may induce spiders to perform specific behavioral routines after prey interception. If this occurs, cognitive constraints may limit their ability to use different capture routines efficiently. Our study supports the predictions of individual niche specialization theory for a euryphagous spider species and highlights the potential of spiders as a study model to investigate the underlying mechanisms.</p>
Bat-flower trait matching: Extreme phenotypic specialization affects diet preferences but not diet breadth
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Life history genomic regions explain differences in Atlantic salmon marine diet specialization
<p>Abstract</p> <p>1. Animals employ various foraging strategies along their ontogeny to acquire energy, and with varying degree of efficiencies, to support growth, maturation and subsequent reproduction events. Individuals that can efficiently acquire energy early are more likely to mature at an earlier age, as a result of faster energy gain which can fuel maturation and reproduction.</p> <p>2. We aimed to test the hypothesis that heritable resource acquisition variation that co-varies with efficiency along the ontogeny would influence maturation timing of individuals.</p> <p>3. To test this hypothesis, we utilized Atlantic salmon as a model which exhibit a simple, hence trackable, genetic control of maturation age. We then monitored the variation in diet acquisition (quantified as stomach fullness and composition) of individuals with different ages, and linked it with genomic regions (haploblocks) that were previously identified to be associated with age-at-maturity.</p> <p>4. Consistent with the hypothesis, we demonstrated that one of the life history genomic regions tested six(6) was indeed associated with age-dependent differences in stomach fullness. Prey composition was marginally linked to six(6), and suggestively (but non-significantly) to vgll3 genomic regions. We further showed Atlantic salmon switched to the so-called "feast and famine" strategy along the ontogeny, where older age groups exhibited heavier stomach content, but that came at the expense of running on empty more often.</p> <p>5. These results suggest genetic variation underlying resource utilization may explain the genetic basis of age structure in Atlantic salmon. Given that ontogenetic diet has a genetic component and the strong spatial diversity associated with these genomic regions, we predict populations with diverse maturation age will have diverse evolutionary responses to future changes in marine food-web structures. 28-Jul-2020</p>
Data from: Diet specialization in an extreme omnivore: nutritional regulation in glucose-averse German cockroaches
Organisms have diverse adaptations for balancing dietary nutrients, but often face trade-offs between ingesting nutrients and toxins in food. While extremely omnivorous cockroaches would seem excluded from such dietary trade-offs, German cockroaches (Blattella germanica) in multiple populations have rapidly evolved a unique dietary specialization – an aversion to glucose, the phagostimulant in toxic baits used for pest control. We used factorial feeding experiments within the geometric framework to test whether glucose-averse (GA) cockroaches with limited access to this critical metabolic fuel have compensatory behavioural and physiological strategies for meeting nutritional requirements. GA cockroaches had severely constrained intake, fat and N mass, and performance on glucose-based diets relative to wild-type (WT) cockroaches and did not appear to exhibit digestive strategies for retaining undereaten nutrients. However, a GA × WT 'hybrid' had lower glucose aversion than GA and greater access to macronutrients within glucose-based diets – while still having lower intake and survival than WT. Given these intermediate foraging constraints, hybrids may be a reservoir for this maladaptive trait in the absence of positive selection and may account for the rapid evolution of this trait following bait application.
Data from: Similarity and specialization of the larval versus adult diet of European butterflies and moths
Many herbivorous insects feed on plant tissues as larvae but use other resources as adults. Adult nectaring is an important component of the diet of many adult herbivores, but few studies compare adult and larval feeding for broad groups of insects. We compiled a dataset of larval host use and adult nectar sources for 995 butterfly and moth species (Lepidoptera) in Central Europe. Using a phylogenetic generalized least squares approach, we found that Lepidoptera that fed on more plant species as larvae were also nectar-feeding on more plant species as adults. Lepidoptera that lack functional mouthparts as adults on average used more plant species as larval hosts than Lepidoptera with adult mouthparts. We found that 54% of Lepidoptera include their larval host as a nectar source. By creating null models describing similarity between larval and adult nectar sources, we furthermore show that Lepidoptera nectar on their larval host more than would be expected if they fed at random on available nectar sources. Despite nutritional differences of plant tissue and nectar, we show that there are similarities between adult and larval feeding in Lepidoptera. This suggests that either behavioral or digestive constraints are retained throughout the lifecycle of holometabolous herbivores, affecting host breadth and identity.
Data from: Latitudinal variation in ecological opportunity and intraspecific competition indicates differences in niche variability and diet specialization of Arctic marine predators
Individual specialization (IS), where individuals within populations irrespective of age, sex, and body size are either specialized or generalized in terms of resource use, has implications on ecological niches and food web structure. Niche size and degree of IS of near-top trophic-level marine predators have been little studied in polar regions or with latitude. We quantified the large-scale latitudinal variation of population- and individual-level niche size and IS in ringed seals (Pusa hispida) and beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on 379 paired ringed seal liver and muscle samples and 124 paired beluga skin and muscle samples from eight locations ranging from the low to high Arctic. We characterized both within- and between-individual variation in predator niche size at each location as well as accounting for spatial differences in the isotopic ranges of potential prey. Total isotopic niche width (TINW) for populations of ringed seals and beluga decreased with increasing latitude. Higher TINW values were associated with greater ecological opportunity (i.e., prey diversity) in the prey fish community which mainly consists of Capelin (Mallotus villosus) and Sand lance (Ammodytes sp.) at lower latitudes and Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) at high latitudes. In beluga, their dietary consistency between tissues also known as the within-individual component (WIC) increased in a near 1:1 ratio with TINW (slope = 0.84), suggesting dietary generalization, whereas the slope (0.18) of WIC relative to TINW in ringed seals indicated a high degree of individual specialization in ringed seal populations with higher TINWs. Our findings highlight the differences in TINW and level of IS for ringed seals and beluga relative to latitude as a likely response to large-scale spatial variation in ecological opportunity, suggesting species-specific variation in dietary plasticity to spatial differences in prey resources and environmental conditions in a rapidly changing ecosystem.
Gemcitabine Compared With Pancreatic Enzyme Therapy Plus Specialized Diet (Gonzalez Regimen) in Treating Patients Who Have Stage II, Stage III, or Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT00003851. IPD Sharing: Not stated. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.
Effect of a Low-calorie and High-protein Diet Specially Rich in Animal Protein Compared to a Low-calorie and High-protein Diet Specially Rich in Plant Protein on Glucose Metabolism in Subjects With Pr
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT05456347. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.
Data from: Diet specialization in an extreme omnivore: nutritional regulation in glucose-averse German cockroaches
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Data from: Latitudinal variation in ecological opportunity and intraspecific competition indicates differences in niche variability and diet specialization of Arctic marine predators
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Find the Food First: An Omnivorous Sensory Morphotype Predates Biomechanical Specialization for Plant Based Diets in Phyllostomid Bats
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Data from: Similarity and specialization of the larval versus adult diet of European butterflies and moths
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Life history genomic regions explain differences in Atlantic salmon marine diet specialization
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Invertebrate photographs and taxonomic information from: Nuance in the narrative of a brown poison frog: Environmental alkaloids and specialized foraging in a presumed toxin-free and diet-generalized species
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Ecological specialization and niche overlap of subterranean rodents inferred from DNA metabarcoding diet analysis
<p>Knowledge of how animal species use food resources available in the environment increases our understanding of ecological processes. However, obtaining this information using traditional methods is a hard task for species feeding on a large variety of food items in highly diverse environments. We amplified the DNA of plants for 306 scat and 40 soil samples, and applied an eDNA metabarcoding approach to investigate food preferences, degree of diet specialization and diet overlap of seven herbivore rodent species of the <i>Ctenomys</i> genus distributed in southern and midwestern Brazil.<b> </b>The metabarcoding approach revealed that species consume more than 60% of the plant families recovered in soil samples, indicating generalist feeding habits of ctenomyids. The Poaceae family was the most common food resource retrieved in scats of all species as well in soil samples. Niche overlap analysis indicated high overlap in the plant families and Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units consumed, mainly among the southern species.<b> </b>Interspecific difference in diet composition was influenced, among other factors, by the availability of resources in the environment. In addition, our results provide support for the hypothesis that the allopatric distributions of ctenomyids allow them to exploit the same range of resources when available, possibly because of the absence of interspecific competition.</p>
Data from: Exploring the nature of ecological specialization in a coral reef fish community: morphology, diet, and foraging microhabitat use
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Ecological specialization and niche overlap of subterranean rodents inferred from DNA metabarcoding diet analysis
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