%0 Journal Article
%T SpeciesidentificationrefinedbymolecularscatologyinacommunityofsympatriccarnivoresinXinjiang,China
%A Alice LAGUARDIA
%A Jun WANG
%A Fang-Lei SHI
%A Kun SHI
%A Philip RIORDAN
%J 动物学研究
%P 72-78
%D 2015
%X Manyecologicalstudiesandconservationmanagementplansemploynoninvasivescatsamplingbasedontheassumptionthatspecies'scatscanbecorrectlyidentifiedinthefield.However,inhabitatswithsympatricsimilarlysizedcarnivores,misidentificationofscatsisfrequentandcanleadtobiasinresearchresults.Toaddressthescatidentificationdilemma,molecularscatologytechniqueshavebeendevelopedtoextractDNAfromthedonorcellspresentontheouterliningofthescatsamples.Atotalof100sampleswerecollectedinthewinterof2009and2011inTaxkorganregionofXinjiang,China.DNAwasextractedsuccessfullyfrom88%ofsamplesandgeneticspeciesidentificationshowedthatmorethanhalfthescatsidentifiedinthefieldassnowleopard(Pantherauncia)actuallybelongedtofox(Vulpesvulpes).Correlationbetweenscatcharacteristicsandspecieswereinvestigated,showingthatdiameteranddryweightofthescatweresignificantlydifferentbetweenthespecies.Howeveritwasnotpossibletodefineapreciserangeofvaluesforeachspeciesbecauseofextensiveoverlapbetweenthemorphologicalvalues.Thispreliminarystudyconfirmsthatidentificationofsnowleopardfecesinthefieldismisleading.Researchthatreliesuponscatsamplestoassessdistributionordietofthesnowleopardshouldthereforeemploymolecularscatologytechniques.Thesemethodsarefinanciallyaccessibleandemployrelativelysimplelaboratoryproceduresthatcangiveanindisputableresponsetospeciesidentificationfromscats.
%K DNAanalysis
%K Snowleopard
%K Scats
%K Noninvasivegenetics
%K Carnivore
%U http://www.zoores.ac.cn/CN/abstract/abstract3576.shtml