Selective plant foraging and the top-down suppression of native diversity in a restored prairie

Clarifying what species are being consumed at what times can improve our understanding of how anthropogenic change affects food web dynamics, with implications for community assembly including restoration. This includes human-based changes to plant communities via species introductions, which can interact with consumer feeding preferences to indirectly alter assembly outcomes including reduced restoration success if planted species are preferentially targeted.
We used DNA barcoding of plant material in rodent scat, combined with field-based feeding trials, rodent trapping, and rodent exclosures to test for dietary preferences and assembly impacts of native rodents on a restored and regionally rare tallgrass prairie of central North America. We examined whether native rodents preferred non-targeted and mostly non-native oldfield plants that are more locally abundant, thus protecting the rarer native planted species from consumption, or if rodents preferred native plants regardless of ab...

厘清不同时段内各类生物的取食情况，可深化我们对人为活动如何影响食物网动态的认知，相关研究结果对包括生态修复在内的群落构建工作具有重要指导意义。其中涵盖人类通过物种引入对植物群落造成的改变——这类改变可与消费者的取食偏好相互作用，间接改变群落构建的结果，例如若人工修复种植的物种被优先取食，则会降低修复成功率。
本研究通过对啮齿动物粪便中的植物材料进行DNA条形码（DNA barcoding）分析，结合野外取食实验、啮齿动物诱捕以及啮齿动物围栏隔离实验，探究北美中部一处修复后的区域珍稀高草草原中，本土啮齿动物的取食偏好及其对群落构建的影响。本研究旨在明确：本土啮齿动物究竟更偏好当地更为常见的非目标物种（多为非原生的弃耕地植物），从而使更为珍稀的人工种植本土物种免受取食，还是无论[原文未完成表述]，啮齿动物均更偏好本土植物。