Journal article
Interspecific and intraspecific relationships between body mass and diet quality in a macropodid community
S Garnick, J DI Stefano, BD Moore, NE Davis, MA Elgar, G Coulson
Journal of Mammalogy | OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC | Published : 2018
Abstract
The Jarman-Bell principle seeks to explain why smaller herbivore species tend to select higher-quality forage (high protein and high fiber digestibility) than larger herbivore species. This principle may also provide insight into intraspecific differences in resource use in species with pronounced sexual size dimorphism. We examined the relationship between body mass and diet quality in a sexually dimorphic macropodid community comprising larger (17-55 kg) eastern and western gray kangaroos, Macropus giganteus and M. fuliginosus, and smaller (7-23 kg) red-necked and swamp wallabies, M. rufogriseus and Wallabia bicolor. We determined diet composition through microhistological analysis of feca..
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Awarded by Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank J. Cripps, D. Lockwood, G. Lorimer, D. Panther, M. Wilson, and many volunteers for assistance with field and lab work, and Parks Victoria and the (former) Department of Sustainability and Environment for the use of Victoria Valley Airbase. Funding came from an Australian Research Council Discovery Project 0664120 grant to GC and a Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment Fund grant to SG. SG was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Research Award. The authors confirm that they have no conflicts of interest. This work was conducted under The University of Melbourne's Faculty of Science, School of Land and Environment, and Optometry and Vision Sciences Animal Ethics Committee project number 0810628 and the Department of Sustainability and Environment permit numbers 10004582, 10005421 and 10006116.