Fallow deer stool samples to assess seasonal diet contents in North Wales (UK)

Deer (Cervidae) populations are expanding throughout the temperate zone, raising concerns for woodland conservation and management. Understanding how deer use foraging resources in a landscape could improve understanding of the effects of deer on woodland environments and how this interacts with human land use objectives. This study characterised the seasonal diet of fallow deer (Dama dama) in North Wales through DNA metabarcoding of faecal contents. Faecal samples were collected from three woodland sites roughly every month over two years. In addition, six samples were collected from the Welsh Mountain Zoo to compare the diets of wild deer with access to woodland environments against a captive fallow deer population in a grassland enclosure. In addition, a field experiment in one of the field sites evaluated the potential for faecal sample contamination from the air and soil. All samples were sequenced on an Illumina Miseq using the ITS2 and rbcL plant markers.