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Differentiating between Steller sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus ) and northern fur seal ( Callorhinus ursinus ) scats through analysis of faecal DNA
- Source :
- Molecular Ecology Resources. 11:166-170
- Publication Year :
- 2010
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2010.
-
Abstract
- We describe a method to determine the species of pinniped from faeces collected from sympatric Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) and northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) rookeries using newly developed species-specific primers that amplify a 667-669-base pair segment from the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome B (cytB) gene region. The primers yielded the correct species in 100% of tissue samples from 10 known animals and 100% of faecal samples from 13 known animals. Species could be identified unequivocally for 87.7% of faecal samples from 122 unknown individuals. The ability to differentiate between scats of sympatrically breeding Steller sea lions and northern fur seals will contribute to the range-wide knowledge of the foraging strategies of both species as well as allow researchers to examine the niche partitioning and potential resource competition between the two predators.
- Subjects :
- Mitochondrial DNA
Rookery
Cytochrome b
Ecology
Fur Seals
Niche differentiation
Biology
biology.organism_classification
Polymerase Chain Reaction
Sea Lions
Predation
Feces
Callorhinus ursinus
Genetics
Animals
Fur seal
Eumetopias jubatus
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
DNA Primers
Biotechnology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17550998 and 1755098X
- Volume :
- 11
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Molecular Ecology Resources
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....206e702dc97dd92a9e9fe638d8ce4208