Academic Journal
Two wild carnivores selectively forage for prey but not amino acids
| العنوان: | Two wild carnivores selectively forage for prey but not amino acids |
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| المؤلفون: | Dwyer, Georgia K., Stoffels, Rick J., Silvester, Ewen, Rees, Gavin N. |
| المساهمون: | VCF Holsworth Local Heritage Trust, La Trobe University School of Life Science Postgraduate Publication Award |
| المصدر: | Scientific Reports ; volume 13, issue 1 ; ISSN 2045-2322 |
| بيانات النشر: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| سنة النشر: | 2023 |
| الوصف: | In nutritional ecology the intake target is the diet that maximises consumer fitness. A key hypothesis of nutritional ecology is that natural selection has acted upon the behavioural and physiological traits of consumers to result in them Selectively Consuming prey to match the Intake Target (SCIT). SCIT has been documented in some herbivores and omnivores, which experience strong heterogeneity in the nutritional quality of available foods. Although carnivores experience a prey community with a much more homogeneous nutrient composition, SCIT by carnivores has nevertheless been deemed highly likely by some researchers. Here we test for SCIT for micronutrients (amino acids) in two freshwater carnivores: the river blackfish and the two-spined blackfish. Although both blackfishes exhibited non-random consumption of prey from the environment, this resulted in non-random consumption of amino acids in only one species, the river blackfish. Non-random consumption of amino acids by river blackfish was not SCIT, but instead an artefact of habitat-specific foraging. We present hypotheses to explain why wild populations of freshwater carnivores may not exhibit SCIT for amino acids. Our work highlights the need for careful, critical tests of the hypotheses and assumptions of nutritional ecology and its application to wild populations. |
| نوع الوثيقة: | article in journal/newspaper |
| اللغة: | English |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-023-28231-w |
| الاتاحة: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28231-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28231-w.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28231-w |
| Rights: | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| رقم الانضمام: | edsbas.BC500934 |
| قاعدة البيانات: | BASE |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-023-28231-w |
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