Endozoochorous seed dispersal by Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) in Taehwa Research Forest, South Korea

Lee, Seung-Kyung; Ryu, Youngil; Lee, Eun Ju

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2022.e02325

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Some plants are classified as “not applicable” if the detected genus contains species with different growth forms, or if the taxonomic identification was ambiguous below the 80% confidence level. The local flora data for TRF were adopted from Choi, et al 40 and Ko and Shin 41 , Lee, et al 42 and those for CCZ were adopted from Kim and Kang 43 and Gyeonggi Tourism Organization 44 . The differences in the diet type between the sites and between the seasons was statistically tested using the Wilcoxon rank sum test.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using high-throughput sequencing to investigate the dietary composition of the Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus): a spatiotemporal comparison

Lee

Woo

Lee

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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The Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) is considered a vermin in Korea because it damages crops, but also listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN’s red list. Therefore, it is indispensable to manage them appropriately by understanding the ecology such as food habits. Here, we aimed to apply high-throughput sequencing (HTS), a sensitive and objective method, to investigate the dietary composition of the Korean water deer inhabiting the lowland and forest areas in summer and winter. We targeted the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region for plant identification. From a total of 40 fecal samples analyzed, 63 plant genera were identified, with Morus being the most abundant, and some of the plant taxa identified by HTS were detected for the first time as the diets of Korean water deer. By type, woody plants (68.6%) were the most predominant, followed by forbs (7.0%) and graminoids (0.7%). We found that the deer in the forest area ate more woody plants (84.6%) than those in the lowland area (52.7%). It was also found that the type of woody plants that the deer ate changed by season. Overall, our results indicate that the Korean water deer is a browser that is seasonally adaptable and feeds on a wide variety of woody plants. We expect that the results and genetics methods reported here, by parallelly investigating their habitat range and reproductive behavior in the future, will help the management and conservation of the Korean water deer, which is in contradictory situations.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%