Researchers have found elephants vary their diets based not only on what is available, but also their preferences and physiological needs.
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One of the main tools that the scientists used to conduct their study is called DNA metabarcoding, a genetic technique that allows researchers to identify the composition of biological samples by matching the extracted DNA fragments representing an elephant's food to a library of plant DNA barcodes.
"The reason is that these animals are difficult and dangerous to observe from up-close, they move long distances, they feed at night and in thick bush and a lot of the plants they feed on are quite small." Additionally, the researchers suggest what elephants eat can be nearly impossible to identify by eye, even for an expert botanist.
The study, published in Royal Society Open Science, also found that dietary differences among individual elephants were often far greater than had been previously assumed, even among family members that foraged together on a given day."Each elephant needs variety, a little bit of spice - not literally in their food, but in their dietary habits."
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