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Digestive plasticity as a response to woodland fragmentation in roe deer

  • Original Article
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Ecological Research

Abstract

Digestive plasticity, which refers to changes in digestive features due to changes in both internal and external environmental conditions, is a crucial factor for understanding the ability of species to cope with environmental changes. In Europe, agricultural intensification and the loss of forests have been major challenges for original forest dwellers, however some species, such as the European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), have been able to successfully colonize these new habitats. In this work, we investigated the adaptation of some digestive features of roe deer to the agricultural landscapes. We assessed whether changes in local landscape structure influenced the mass of both reticulorumen (RR) and distal fermentation chamber (DFC) of 47 juvenile and adult roe deer inhabiting an agro-ecosystem in southwest France. Woodland cover had a clear effect on diet quality (estimated by the rate of gas production of digestive contents) and DFC weight of animals. In fact, deer from the most forested landscapes showed heavier DFCs and fed on poorer quality diet (lower gas production) than their counterparts from the most open landscapes. RR mass was less influenced by the landscape openness, being the age of animals the main factor for understanding the variations of this digestive feature in our study area. We can conclude that colonizing agricultural landscapes increases the access to highly energetic and digestive resources.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank J.P. Chanal and the local hunting associations with the Fédération Départementale des Chasseurs de la Haute Garonne for allowing us to obtain the samples. E. Serrano is supported by the Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral programme of the MICINN, Spain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals, Servei d′Ecopatologia de Fauna Salvatge (SEFaS), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    Emmanuel Serrano Ferron

  2. Comportement et Ecologie de la Fauna Sauvage, INRA, Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France

    Hélène Verheyden, Bruno Cargnelutti, Bruno Lourtet, Joel Merlet, Jean Marc Angibault & Aidan Jonathan Mark Hewison

  3. Institute of Animal Sciences, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Jürgen Hummel

  4. Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Mónica González-Candela

  5. Clinic for Zoo Animals, Exotic Pets and Wildlife, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Marcus Clauss

Authors
  1. Emmanuel Serrano Ferron
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  2. Hélène Verheyden
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  3. Jürgen Hummel
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  4. Bruno Cargnelutti
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  5. Bruno Lourtet
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  6. Joel Merlet
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  7. Mónica González-Candela
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  8. Jean Marc Angibault
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  9. Aidan Jonathan Mark Hewison
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  10. Marcus Clauss
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Correspondence to Emmanuel Serrano Ferron.

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Serrano Ferron, E., Verheyden, H., Hummel, J. et al. Digestive plasticity as a response to woodland fragmentation in roe deer. Ecol Res 27, 77–82 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-011-0872-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-011-0872-x

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