@article {145412, title = {Spatial patterns in the diet of Gyps vultures in India and their implications for conservation}, journal = {BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION}, volume = {292}, year = {2024}, month = {04/2024}, abstract = {

Dietary analyses are particularly useful for developing conservation programmes for species threatened by resource depletion, poisoning and environmental pollution. Gyps vultures in South Asia represent one such case, having undergone a population collapse caused by feeding on carcasses of cattle treated with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. Following a ban on the veterinary use of diclofenac, populations of vultures remain low and mostly concentrated near protected areas. Understanding the role of protected areas in the recovery of these critically endangered species requires analyses of spatial variation in their diet. We used faecal metabarcoding to investigate the spatial variation in the diet of Gyps vultures across four landscapes from sites located inside and outside protected areas. We collected faecal 642 samples, of which 419 yielded adequate molecular data to identify the vulture species and 30 molecular operational taxonomic units corresponding to at least 28 diet species. The diet was dominated by large ungulates and varied across landscapes, protection status and vulture species, with the observed variation largely explained by differential intake of wild and domestic species. Domestic livestock was present in \>95 \% of the samples from Central, West and North India, but 77 \% of the samples had only wild species in South India. This variation was explained by livestock density within 100 km radius of the sampling site. Our results imply that protected areas may not offer a respite from possibility of diclofenac-poisoning across most parts of the country and efforts should continue unabated to remove nephrotoxic drugs from veterinary use.

}, doi = {10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110551}, author = {Ghosh-Harihar, Mousumi and Yadav, Nidhi and Gurung, Nehal and Darshan, C. S. and Shashikumar, B. and Vishnudas, C. K. and Prakash, Vibhu and Green, Rhys E. and Ramakrishnan, Uma} } @article {83633, title = {Metabarcoding for parallel identification of species, sex and diet of obligate scavengers: an application to globally-threatened Gyps vultures}, journal = {CONSERVATION GENETICS RESOURCES}, year = {2020}, month = {2020}, abstract = {

After suffering a massive decline (similar to 99\%) in numbers caused by feeding on livestock carcasses containing the nephrotoxic drug diclofenac, critically endangeredGypsvultures now persist in low numbers in the Indian subcontinent. Most are concentrated near National Parks, likely due to availability of wild carcasses free from toxic veterinary drugs. Quantification of vulture diets is critical to test this hypothesis. We describe a validated "field-to-benchtop-to-desktop" metabarcoding workflow for assessing species- and sex-specific diet of these obligate scavengers from non-invasively collected faecal samples. Seven metabarcodes were designed to simultaneouslsy identify the vulture species, sex and diet. Amplicons generated from multiplex PCRs were indexed and sequenced on an Illumina Miseq platform. We included controls and three replicates per sample to establish a series of non-arbitrary thresholds to filter the sequence data and eliminate cross-contamination, PCR/sequencing errors and false positives. This strategy enabled identification of species and sex for all samples and diet-specific sequences with high taxonomic resolution for 97\% of samples. Just four (two for diet, one each for vulture species and sexing) metabarcodes were sufficient to meet the objectives. This preliminary analysis suggests that domestic livestock is the most frequently consumed diet item across samples from inside and outside protected habitats. Our method provides a rapid and reliable tool for describing large-scale variation in consumption of domestic versus wild species in the diet of these scavengers, paving the way for a better understanding of the role protected areas play in persistence and recovery of the remainingGypsvultures in the wild.

}, doi = {10.1007/s12686-020-01171-7}, author = {Ghosh-Harihar, Mousumi and Gurung, Nehal and Shukla, Harsh and Sinha, Ishani and Pandit, Awadhesh and Prakash, Vibhu and Green, Rhys E. and Ramakrishnan, Uma} }