Ecologists have long sought clarity on the dietary habits of different animal species.
Ecologists have long sought clarity on the dietary habits of different animal species. For scientists at Brown University and the National Park Service, it wasn’t obvious how herbivores in Yellowstone National Park, who subsist on grasses, wildflowers and trees, could compete for enough of those foods to survive the winter.
Over two years, with the aid of cutting-edge molecular biology tools and GPS tracking data, the researchers were able to determine not only what herbivores in Yellowstone eat, but also what strategies the animals use to find food throughout the year. The team published its findings in Royal Society Open Science.
“In Yellowstone, we know vegetation changes across seasons, but until now, we didn’t know how these seasonal changes influenced what animals eat or how they sustained themselves when options were limited,” said lead study author Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown. “It turns out that while species eat similar categories of food, their diets differ from one another in cryptic and nuanced ways. And an animal’s body size plays an important role in how this is achieved.”
Read more at: Brown University
Bison are seen grazing in a meadow in early winter at Yellowstone National Park. (Photo Credit: Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun)
