Unravelling the diet of flightless grasshoppers for conservation purposes using DNA metabarcoding

Abstract

Abstract: Understanding food plant resources is essential for assessing habitat suitability for herbivorous animals, especially for species with limited movement that depend on local resources. However, obtaining this information can be challenging for species whose plant consumption cannot be easily monitored. Here we use DNA metabarcoding to identify the plant species present in the faeces of two grasshopper species of the flightless Australian subfamily Morabinae, the endangered Keys’ matchstick grasshopper Keyacris scurra, and the Larapuna matchstick grasshopper, Vandiemenella viatica. DNA sequences from the chloroplast trnL (UAA) and rbcL genes and ribosomal ITS2 region were used to ide..