DNA metabarcoding study of faecal samples collected from wild chimpanzees living in Tai National Park, Ivory Coast.

Behavioral monitorning of wild, human-habituated chmpanzees can provide important information on dietary habits. Factors such as reduced visibility in the forest and chimpanzee fission-fusion structure however hamper close monitorning at all times. DNA metabarcoding in faecal samples offers a unique opportunity of looking at the mammalian DNA content and reconstructing the carnivore component of the chimpanzee diet. Here we analysed 365 faecal samples from wild chimpanzees in Tai National Park. We applied a metabarcoding approach which consists of sequencing a short 16s fragment using the Illumina sequencing platform MiSeq and performing taxonomic assignement using the OBITools package.