Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Feeding diets of the Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) based on a 202 bp rbcL sequence analysis

  • Short Communication
  • Published:
Conservation Genetics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The water deer (Hydropotes inermis) is one of the rare small ruminants in the world. There are two distinct subspecies in Far East Asia: one (H. i. inermis) lives in China, and the other (H. i. argyropus) lives in Korea. Unlike the Chinese subspecies, the diet of the Korean subspecies in the wild has rarely been studied. Here, we analyzed the diets of the Korean water deer by using 202 bp rbcL sequences of plants found in fecal samples. Both similarity (%) and phylogeny (NJ tree) of the sequences were considered for the sequence assignment. These methods successfully assigned each sequence to only one family of one order without exception. We found that the Korean water deer fed on a total of 18 orders and 24 families of plants in the summer season. It fed mainly on Asteraceae family (28.4%) followed by Fagaceae (15.9%) and Polygonaceae (11.5%). There was a significant difference in diet composition between lowland area and mountainous area deer (P < 0.001). The Korean water deer on Daebu Island are presumably browsers feeding mainly on forbs or woody plants.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning.

References

  • Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2009) An update of the angiosperm phylogeny group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG III. Bot J Linn Soc 161:105–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradley BJ, Stiller M, Doran-Sheehy DM, Harris T, Chapman CA, Vigilant L, Poinar H (2007) Plant DNA sequences from feces: potential means for assessing diets of wild primates. Am J Primatol 69:699–705

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cooke A, Farrell L (1998) Chinese water deer. The Mammal Society and the British Deer Society, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Cristobal-Azkarate J, Arroyo-Rodriguez V (2007) Diet and activity pattern of howler monkeys (Alouatta palliate) in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico: effects of habitat fragmentation and implications for conservation. Am J Primatol 69:1013–1029

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • De garine-Wichatitsky M, Soubeyran Y, Maillard D, Duncan P (2005) The diets of introduced rusa deer (Cervus timorensis russa) in a native sclerophyll forest and a native rainforest of New Caledonia. New Zeal J Zool 32:117–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geist V (1998) Deer of the world: their evolution, behaviour and ecology. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerloff U, Schlotterer C, Rassmann K, Rambold I, Hohmann G, Fruth B, Tautz D (1995) Amplification of hypervariable simple sequence repeats (microsatellites) from excremental DNA of wild living bonobos (Pan paniscus). Mol Ecol 4:515–518

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Guo G, Zhang E (2005) Diet of the Chinese water deer (Hydropotes inermis) in Zhoushan Archipelago, China. Acta Theriol Sinica 25:122–130

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris RB, Duckworth JW (2008) Hydropotes inermis. In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.1

  • Hofmann RR (1973) The ruminant stomach: stomach structure and feeding habit of East African game ruminants. East African Literature Bureau, Nairobi

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofmann RR, Kock RA, Lugwig J (1988) Seasonal changes in rumen papillary development and body condition in free ranging Chinese water deer (Hydropotes inermis). J Zool, London 216:103–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hofreiter M, Poinar HN, Spaulding WG, Bauer K, Martin PS, Possnert G, Pääbo S (2000) A molecular analysis of ground sloth diet through the last glaciation. Mol Ecol 9:1975–1984

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jarman SN, Deagle BE, Gales NJ (2004) Group-specific polymerase chain reaction for DNA-based analysis of species diversity and identity in dietary samples. Mol Ecol 13:1313–1322

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kim EK (2007) Food diet analysis of Korean water deer using a microhistological method. M.S. thesis, Gangwon National University, Rep Korea (in Korean)

  • Kim B-J, Oh D-H, Chun S-H, Lee S-D (2010) Distribution, density, and habitat use of the Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) in Korea. Landscape Ecol Eng. doi:10.1007/s11355-010-0127-y

  • Kuch M, Rohland N, Betancourt JL, Latorre C, Steppan S, Poinar HN (2002) Molecular analysis of a 11 700-year-old rodent midden from the Atacama Desert, Chile. Mol Ecol 11:913–924

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lee BK (2003) Morphological, ecological and DNA taxomomic characteristics of Chinese water deer (Hydropotes inermis Swinhoe), Ph.D. thesis, Chungbuk National University (in Korean)

  • Marrero P, Oliveira P, Nogales M (2004) Diet of the endemic Madeira Laurel Pigeon Columba trocaz in agricultural and forest areas: implications for conservation. Bird Conserv Int 14:165–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pääbo S, Poinar H, Serre D, Jaenicke-Despres V, Hebler J, Rohland N, Kuch M, Krause J, Vigilant L, Hofreiter M (2004) Genetic analyses from ancient DNA. Ann Rev Genet 38:645–679

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Poinar HN, Hofreiter M, Spaulding WG, Martin PS, Stankiewicz BA, Bland H, Evershed RP, Possnert G, Pääbo S (1998) Molecular coproscopy: dung and diet of the extinct ground sloth Nothrotheriops shastensis. Science 281:402–406

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pons J (2006) DNA-based identification of preys from non-destructive, total DNA extractions of predators using arthropod universal primers. Mol Ecol Notes 6:623–626

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Symondson WOC (2002) Molecular identification of prey in predator diets. Mol Ecol 11:627–641

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Takatsuki S, Ueda H (2007) Meso-scale variation in winter food composition of sika deer in Tochigi Prefecture, central Japan. Mamm Study 32:115–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valentini A, Miquel C, Ali Nawaz M, Bellemain E, Coissac E, Pompanon F, Gielly L, Cruaud C, Nascetti G, Wincker P, Swenson J, Taberlet P (2009) New perspectives in diet analysis based on DNA barcoding and parallel pyrosequencing: the trnL approach. Mol Ecol Res 9:51–60

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Won CM, Smith KG (1999) History and current status of mammals of the Korean peninsula. Mamm Rev 29:3–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by SWRRC (1-0-3) and KRF (2009-1449-1-6), which the authors wish to thank for their financial support. The authors thank Dr. S. H. Lee for his help with obtaining fecal samples in the field. Also, we are grateful to Dr. R. Morrison for providing us with critical review on this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Korea

    Baek Jun Kim & Sang Don Lee

  2. Conservation Genome Resource Bank for Korean Wildlife (CGRB), College of Veterinary Medicine and BK21 Program for Veterinary Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, Korea

    Baek Jun Kim

  3. Department of Life Science, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Korea

    Nam Sook Lee

Authors
  1. Baek Jun Kim
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nam Sook Lee
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sang Don Lee
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sang Don Lee.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

See Table 3

Table 3 Sequences of plants found in Korean water deer fecal samples
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kim, B.J., Lee, N.S. & Lee, S.D. Feeding diets of the Korean water deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) based on a 202 bp rbcL sequence analysis. Conserv Genet 12, 851–856 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-011-0192-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-011-0192-2

Keywords