Diet of the European bison ( Bison bonasus ) in a forest habitat estimated by DNA barcoding
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Diet of the European bison (Bison bonasus) in a forest habitat estimated by DNA barcoding Ida Hartvig 1,2 & Andy G. Howe 1,3 Rita M. Buttenschøn 1
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Emilie N. B. Schmidt 1,4 & Cino Pertoldi 5
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Jeppe Lund Nielsen 5
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Received: 16 May 2020 / Accepted: 9 October 2020 # Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bialowieza, Poland 2020
Abstract Re-introduction of large herbivores is increasingly used as a tool in nature management and for restoration of more biodiverse habitats. This study investigated the diet of recently introduced European bison, Bison bonasus, in a forest habitat in Bornholm, Denmark, with the purpose of evaluating its adaptation to the new habitat and assessing its potential for facilitating development towards a more open and species-rich forest. Metabarcoding of 39 bison dung samples collected during June–August identified 71 plant taxa belonging to 36 families as diet objects, comprising 56% forbs, 20% trees, 17% graminoids and 7% shrubs. The broad composition of the diet shows the capacity of the bison to adjust to new habitats and exploit a variety of different habitats when foraging, including meadows and other wet areas. Among the most frequently consumed plant taxa were the shrub Rubus idaeus, a number of coarse grass species and most tree species found in the habitat. Rubus idaeus were by far the most abundant taxa, constituting 44% of all the DNA sequences. The results suggest that foraging by bison can contribute towards limiting domination by understory shrubs and high, coarse grasses. Over an extended time period, foraging by bison is expected to promote development towards a lower and more open understory and herbaceous layer in the forest habitats. Keywords Metabarcoding . Large herbivores . Foraging ecology . Ecological restoration
Introduction Communicated by: Rafał Kowalczyk Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-020-00541-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Ida Hartvig [email protected] 1
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
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Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Smithsonian Institute, 647 Contees Wharf Road, Edgewater, MD 21037, USA
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Forest Industries Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia
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The Danish Bird Foundation, Vesterbrogade 138-140, 1620 København V, Denmark
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Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7H, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Grazing by large herbivores is increasingly used across Europe to restore top-down trophic interactions in order to promote self-regulating forest and open land ecosystems (Cromsigt et al. 2018). Large herbivores were a natural part of landscape ecosystem dynamics in Europe in the early Holocene after the Weichsel glaciation (Putman 1996; Bengtsson et al. 2000; Vera 2000). Climatic and landscape changes due to increasing infl
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