DNA metabarcoding reveals the seasonal variation of dietary composition of Taihangshan macaque (Macaca mulatta tcheliensis), Jiyuan, north China

Abstract

Dietary analysis in wildlife is fundamental for understanding their flexible response to seasonal changes and developing effective conservation management measures. Taihangshan macaque (Macaca mulatta tcheliensis) is the northernmost population of rhesus macaque, currently only distributed in the southern Mt. Taihangshan area. This area belongs to a semi-arid region resulting in limited plant food availability for Taihangshan macaques, with seasonal variation. Herein, we used a chloroplast trnL DNA metabarcoding approach to identify the plant diet diversity and composition from 100 fecal samples of Taihangshan macaque in four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) from 2020 to 2021. The results revealed that (1) a total of 48 distinct families, 88 genera, and 52 species within the 105 food items that were consumed by Taihangshan macaques throughout the year; (2) the diversity of food items exhibited significant differences across the four seasons; (3) Rosaceae, Rhamnaceae, Fagaceae, and Poaceae are the preferential food items for Taihangshan macaques and have different relative abundances, fluctuating with seasonal variation. DNA metabarcoding can expand our understanding of the repertoire of food items consumed by Taihangshan macaques by detecting some consumed food items in this population that were not yet discovered using traditional methods. Therefore, the integrative results from traditional methods and DNA metabarcoding can provide a fundamental understanding of dietary composition to guide the conservation management of Taihangshan macaques.

Keywords: DNA metabarcoding; Taihangshan macaque (Macaca mulatta tcheliensis); dietary composition; dietary diversity; seasonal variation.

FIGURE 1

Sampling site of the Taihangshan macaques. The left map shows the location of this study in China. The right map was the home range of the Wangwu troop‐1 of Taihangshan macaques in the Mt. Taihangshan area. The dots represented where Taihangshan macaques were observed in the field throughout the year. The fecal samples of Taihangshan macaques were collected from their home range area for dietary analysis.

FIGURE 2

Distribution of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in each season. The bar chart at the bottom left represents the number of OTUs in different seasons. The dotted line at the bottom right shows the intersection within different seasons. The bar chart above represents the number of OTUs in each type of intersection within different seasons.

FIGURE 3

Dietary diversity and clustering patterns of Taihangshan macaques in four seasons. Box‐and‐whisker plots for alpha diversity in plant food items estimators (a) Shannon, (b) Simpson, and (c) Chao1 indices. Different values are labeled between seasons (t‐test); and (d) Seasonal clustering patterns in diet composition of Taihangshan macaques. The differences in the dietary composition between seasons have been determined by beta diversity, which are colored by season. Ellipses show 95% of data rotated to the direction of maximum spread.

FIGURE 4

Seasonal changes in the dietary composition of Taihangshan macaques. (a) Barplot showing the top 10 relative abundance of family‐level taxa in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Low abundance taxa (outside of the top 10 families) were grouped together as “Others”; (b) Indicator families that were related to each season and tracked using Sankey plots. Line width was scaled to reflect the number of genera within each family (higher indicator value of families represented by more genera in a season), which were colored by family; and (c) the taxonomic identification of family|genus|species of the top 10 family‐level food items in each season. “‐” represented the absent taxa information.