HIBERT, Fabrice; SABATIER, Daniel; ANDRIVOT, Judith; SCOTTI-SAINTAGNE, Caroline; GONZALEZ, Sophie; PRÉVOST, Marie-Françoise; GRENAND, Pierre; CHAVE, Jérôme; CARON, Henri; RICHARD-HANSEN, Cécile

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025850

Métadonnées

Afficher la notice complète

Licence d’utilisation du document

HIBERT, Fabrice
Direction Etudes et Recherches Guyane

SABATIER, Daniel
Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations [UMR AMAP]

ANDRIVOT, Judith
Direction Etudes et Recherches Guyane

Langue

Article de revue

Ce document a été publié dans

PLoS ONE. 2011, vol. 6, n° 10, p. e25850

Public Library of Science

Résumé en anglais

While the populations of large herbivores are being depleted in many tropical rainforests, the importance of their trophic role in the ecological functioning and biodiversity of these ecosystems is still not well evaluated. This is due to the outstanding plant diversity that they feed upon and the inherent difficulties involved in observing their elusive behaviour. Classically, the diet of elusive tropical herbivores is studied through the observation of browsing signs and macroscopic analysis of faeces or stomach contents. In this study, we illustrate that the original coupling of classic methods with genetic and ethnobotanical approaches yields information both about the diet diversity, the foraging modalities and the potential impact on vegetation of the largest terrestrial mammal of Amazonia, the lowland tapir. The study was conducted in the Guianan shield, where the ecology of tapirs has been less investigated. We identified 92 new species, 51 new genera and 13 new families of plants eaten by tapirs. We discuss the relative contribution of our different approaches, notably the contribution of genetic barcoding, used for the first time to investigate the diet of a large tropical mammal, and how local traditional ecological knowledge is accredited and valuable for research on the ecology of elusive animals.< Réduire

Mots clés en anglais

TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

SEED-DISPERSAL

TROPICAL FORESTS

DNA-SEQUENCES

EMPTY FOREST

LAND PLANTS

RAIN-FOREST

HABITAT USE

TERRESTRIS

CONSERVATION

Métadonnées

Licence d’utilisation du document

Botany, genetics and ethnobotany: a crossed investigation on the elusive tapir's diet in French Guiana.

Langue

Ce document a été publié dans

Résumé en anglais

Mots clés en anglais

DOI

Origine

Unités de recherche