Currently, the DNA meta-barcoding approach based on the sensitive and high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology is used increasingly to document biodiversity in various ecosystems (Valentini et al. 3). Forty-three individuals of A. argenteus and 49 of A. speciosus were captured, and feces were sampled from each individual. Our results indicate that dietary generalism is not an effective way of increasing population density nor is it result of lower competitive pressure. 1990) on the NCBI database, and then obtained a taxon or a group of taxa with the highest BLAST hit value (Supplementary Data SD2). Supplementary Data SD2.—Obtained sequences, top BLAST hit genera, and estimated plant families. 4 and 5), while A. argenteus consumes material from a more diverse range of families but including the Ulmaceae to a lesser extent (Figs. This study was supported financially in part by a JSPS KAKENHI (granted to TSh, no. in Tiliaceae, and Ulmus sp. endobj Thus, the larger A. speciosus might be competitively superior to the smaller A. argenteus in competition for acorn resources. Indeed, A. argenteus has a broader vertical spatial niche (Abe 1986). 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1503283112 The primers used for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were those designed previously (Taberlet et al. Habitat, food, and time are considered the three most important ecological niche axes, and niche partition among species generally occurs along the first two axes (Schoener 1974, Crowley and Johnson 1982). Because individual wood mice consumed 2 or more dietary items, the total number of occurrences exceeded the number of wood mice. Generally, the result from the number of reads was consistent with that from the binary occurrences except for some differences observed for Rutaceae and Urticaceae (see “Discussion” for the reason of these differences; Figs. 98% (762/781) of total reads for Urticaceae (Supplementary Data SD3) from 1 A. speciosus individual collected in October (TN366, JSFD226). On average, 3.0 plant taxa (min 0 – max 8) were detected from 3 fecal pellets per individual A. argenteus, and 1.4 (min 0 – max 5) plant taxa per individual A. speciosus. The prevalence of phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC) in nature is still a conflicting issue. 2015; Lopes et al. Based on these previous studies and our own results that a larger number of tree species were consumed by A. argenteus compared to A. speciosus, it could be argued that A. argenteus has adapted to feeding on a more diverse range of tall trees through the development of a more advanced ability to climb, as a consequence of competition pressure from A. speciosus during the course of their establishment process in sympatry. Niche breadth based on the total diet (all seasons combined) of A. argenteus and A. speciosus was 0.458 and 0.443, respectively (95% credible interval [CI]: 0.455–0.462 for A. argenteus and 0.426–0.459 for A. speciosus). Traps were set at 10-m intervals in 2–4 grids (ca. In the same study site, Saitoh et al. We then used ExoI (Exonuclease I; TAKARA, Shiga, Japan) and SapI (TSAP; Promega, Tokyo, Japan) hydrolases to remove the remaining primer and dNTP in the post-PCR reaction mixture, and then applied a High Pure PCR Product Purification Kit (Roche Diagnostics, Tokyo, Japan) for the purification of PCR products. For example, although sequence 41 (see Supplementary Data SD2) was identified as species in Rosaceae or Rhamnaceae, we selected Rosaceae because 192 BLAST top-hit sequences belonged to Rosaceae and only 1 to Rhamnaceae (192/193 > 0.95 for Rosaceae; Supplementary Data SD2). false 2014). Watch the Niche Partitioning clip and then complete the following table to describe the remaining examples of niche partitioning. (2017) showed that the acorn production in the previous year had a positive effect on the population abundance of A. speciosus , while that effect was much less for A. argenteus (see also … R package version 0.1.0, Simple methods for gathering food remains of wood mice and trials in education programs, Bulletin of the Forestry and Forest Products Ressearch Institute, Rethinking community assembly through the lens of coexistence theory, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, Rodent post-dispersal seed predation in deciduous woodland: predator response to absolute and relative abundance of prey. 55 0 obj 2016). The abundance of acorns is known to fluctuate yearly (e.g., Onodera et al. The PCR conditions were as follows: a cycle of denaturation at 95°C for 1 min, 40 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 30 s, annealing at 57°C for 90 s, extension at 72°C for 1 min, and a final cycle of extension at 72°C for 10 min. ), depending on plant availability in each season. The probability that the observed value occurs under the conditions of the null model was smaller than 0.01, indicating that the niche overlap between the 2 Apodemus species was significantly higher than would be expected from the null model. 2002). Indices for niche breadth and overlap were based on Rao (1982) and Pianka (1974), respectively. b Numbers of occurrence among the Apodemus individuals that ate dietary items that could not be assigned to taxa below family level. Finally, we used an Ion PGM (ThermoFisher Scientific, Tokyo, Japan) for sequencing the fragments on each bead loaded on the semiconductor chip (Ion 318 Chip v2; ThermoFisher Scientific, Tokyo, Japan). Statistical significance for niche overlap was assessed using the EcoSimR package for R (Gotelli et al. Dietary partitioning is not the mechanism allowing these congeneric varanid lizards to … The average annual temperature is 3.5°C, while the difference between the warmest and coldest temperatures is quite large (more than 30°C in summer [the highest temperature was 34.1°C in July 1989] to less than −30°C in winter [the lowest temperature was −41.2°C in February 1978]). We used the software Claident (Tanabe and Toju 2013) for assigning obtained sequences to each individual of the Apodemus species according to the MID tag and cleaning up the sequence data obtained from Ion PGM sequencing by excluding low-quality sequences (minor sequences or those that were too short; minqual = 20, minlen = 50 in the Claident) and chimeric sequences. www.pnas.org Today's dairy animal is called as biological machine, which consume feed and convert it in to milk. Valentini, A., F.Pompanon, and P. Taberlet. Phylogenetic assessments have indicated that a mammalian community tends to be a nonrandom subset of regional species, being composed of distantly related species (Cardillo et al. However, details of the mechanisms that segregate their niches have not been examined. Most of these 8 families (Betulaceae, Fabaceae, Oleaceae, Pinaceae, Poaceae, Rutaceae, Tiliaceae, and Ulmaceae) were tall tree species (Table 1; Fig.