“Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been..?” Evaluating the use of stable isotopes, radiogenic isotopes and trace elements for investigating the ecology of Panthera leo


Autoria(s): Black, Stuart; Eley, Yvette; Loveridge, Andrew; Wood, Kimberley; Trethowan, Paul; Macdonald, David
Data(s)

2016

Resumo

1. Understanding the behaviour and ecology of large carnivores is becoming increasingly important as the list of endangered species grows, with felids such as Panthera leo in some locations heading dangerously close to extinction in the wild. In order to have more reliable and effective tools to understand animal behaviour, movement and diet, we need to develop novel, integrated approaches and effective techniques to capture a detailed profile of animal foraging and movement patterns. 2. Ecological studies have shown considerable interest in using stable isotope methods, both to investigate the nature of animal feeding habits, and to map their geographical location. However, recent work has suggested that stable isotope analyses of felid fur and bone is very complex and does not correlate directly with the isotopic composition of precipitation (and hence geographical location). 3. We present new data that suggest these previous findings may be atypical, and demonstrate that isotope analyses of Felidae are suitable for both evaluating dietary inputs and establishing geo-location as they have strong environmental referents to both food and water. These data provide new evidence of an important methodology that can be applied to the family Felidae for future research in ecology, conservation, wildlife forensics and archaeological science.

Formato

text

Identificador

http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/59956/1/Methods%20in%20Ecology%20and%20Evolution%20FINAL%20VERSION.pdf

Black, S. <http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/view/creators/90000211.html>, Eley, Y. <http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/view/creators/90005587.html>, Loveridge, A., Wood, K., Trethowan, P. and Macdonald, D. (2016) “Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been..?” Evaluating the use of stable isotopes, radiogenic isotopes and trace elements for investigating the ecology of Panthera leo. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. ISSN 2041-210X (In Press)

Idioma(s)

en

Publicador

Wiley-Blackwell

Relação

http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/59956/

creatorInternal Black, Stuart

creatorInternal Eley, Yvette

Tipo

Article

PeerReviewed