DNA metabarcoding illuminates the contribution of small and very small prey taxa to the diet of lions

Knowledge of food web interactions is essential for understanding the role of carnivores in an ecosystem and designing appropriate conservation and management strategies to preserve them. These interactions can only be understood by studying carnivores’ diets and obtaining comprehensive and unbiased diet data. For large carnivores – which typically rely on large herbivores as prey – the role of smaller prey species has not received attention. This study aims to quantify the contribution of small (5–50 kg) and very small (&lt;5 kg) prey taxa in the diet of lions (Panthera leo melanochaita) in four Kenyan National Parks (NPs). We use DNA metabarcoding to achieve higher-resolution insights into prey composition, which is less biased toward large prey species compared to traditional methods, such as carcass counts. Our study identified 24 prey taxa in a total of 171 lion fecal samples. Small and very small prey taxa together contributed 18.7% out of 278 prey occurrences in all fecal samples..., Raw output of the NGS run, following the sequencing methods used as mentioned in the manuscript., fastq.gz files明晰食物网互作关系，是理解食肉动物在生态系统中的生态功能，并制定科学保护与管理策略以保护其种群的必要基础。唯有通过研究食肉动物的食性，并获取全面且无偏的食性数据，方能透彻理解这类互作机制。对于通常以大型有蹄类为猎物的大型食肉动物而言，小型猎物物种的生态贡献尚未受到学界足够关注。本研究旨在量化肯尼亚四座国家公园（National Parks，NPs）内南非狮（Panthera leo melanochaita）食谱中，小型（5~50千克）与极小型（<5千克）猎物类群的贡献占比。相较于尸体计数法等传统手段，本研究采用DNA元条形码技术（DNA metabarcoding），可获得更高分辨率的猎物组成解析结果，且对大型猎物类群的检测偏倚更低。本研究在总计171份狮粪样本中，共鉴定出24个猎物类群。在所有粪样的278次猎物检出事件中，小型与极小型猎物类群的总占比达18.7%……本研究遵循手稿中所述测序方法得到的下一代测序（Next Generation Sequencing，NGS）原始运行产出数据，以及fastq.gz格式文件。