The research group of Yao Meng and Li Sheng of the School of Life Sciences reported on the analysis of the complex food web structure and species coexistence mechanism of a variety of carnivores in the southwestern mountainous region of my country based on DNA macrobarcoding

On September 21, 2021, Yao Meng and Li Sheng's research group from the School of Life Sciences of Peking University and the Ecological Research Center of Peking University published a research article titled " Prey partitioning and livestock consumption in the world's richest large " on Current Biology .

The mountainous region of southwest China has the world's most diverse carnivore community (the photo is taken by the research team's infrared camera in the field)

How carnivorous species coexist in the community in terrestrial ecosystems, and how to construct a complex food web structure between predators and prey, is one of the core issues of animal ecology research

In this study, the Shaluli, Qionglai, and Minshan mountains in the mountains of southwestern China were used as the research area.

Quantitative food web structure of carnivores-prey in the ecosystems of three mountain systems in the southwestern mountains

A.

The weight of the weighted food species of carnivores is linearly positively correlated with their body weight

The results showed that the food species diversity and phylogenetic diversity of different carnivorous species showed a trend of decreasing with their own weight increase; there was a positive correlation between the weight of carnivores and their prey, and between carnivores of similar size Have a higher degree of food overlap

The large carnivores of the Shaluli Mountains have a strong feeding preference for domestic animals

Based on molecular feeding technology and large sample size analysis, this study quantified the construction of a carnivore-prey complex food web structure for the first time in the world (the number of carnivores species>3), and clarified the feeding ecology of carnivores in the complex forest ecosystem.

The first author of the paper, Shao Xinning (left) and the Lama of Shalulishan (right) collecting samples in the field

Yao Meng (left) and Li Sheng (right) collect animal feces samples at Shaluli Mountain

Field work is greatly assisted by local reserve staff

Yao Meng and Li Sheng are the co-corresponding authors of this paper