Study confirms Chinook salmon comprise nearly 80 percent of a killer whale population's summer diet
Date:January 6, 2016
Source:PLOS
Salmon are the primary summer food source for an endangered population of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest, according to an analysis of fish DNA in killer whale feces published Jan. 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Michael Ford from the National Marine Fisheries Service and colleagues.
This is the first study to thoroughly analyze killer whale diet based on fecal samples. Prior to this study, diet inference was primarily based on analysis of prey remains consumed by the whales at the surface, and it was uncertain if these were always representative of the total diet.
Estimating killer whale diet composition helps scientists understand interactions between predators and prey, but observing their diet directly is difficult. In this study, the authors used genetic analysis of fecal material collected in their summer range in the Salish Sea in the Pacific Northwest, to estimate the diet composition of an endangered population of wild killer whales. They genetically sequenced 175 fecal samples collected from May to September from 2006-2011, which results in nearly 5 million individual sequences that they compared to potential fish from their diet.
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