Date: November 30, 2016
Source: Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien
Przewalski's horse, a species of wild horse that has been
successfully reintroduced to the Gobi Desert, shares its pasture grounds with
wild asses and free-roaming domestic horses. A scarce supply of food could lead
to food competition among the different species, especially if they make the
same dietary choices. A team led by researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna therefore
chemically analysed the tail hairs of the animals to determine the seasonal
dietary habits of the three species. While the wild ass switches from being a
grazer in the summer to also browse in the winter, the wild and domestic horses
eat exclusively grass all year round. In the lean winter months, this leads to
increased food competition between wild and domestic horses. This realisation
could help improve wildlife management measures for the Przewalski's horse in
the future. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Przewalski's horses went extinct in the wild in 1968.
Successful breeding programmes at zoos around the world helped to reintroduce
the animals in the Great Gobi B protected area in southwestern Mongolia since
1992. The wild horses share the extreme habitat of the Gobi Desert with two
other equid species: the Asiatic wild ass, also called khulan, and the
free-ranging domestic horses of local nomads. For the preservation of the wild
Przewalski's horse, it is important to understand if and how the three related
species compete for food in the protected area.
Competition between Przewalski's horses and domestic horses in
the winter
Martina Burnik Šturm and Petra Kaczensky from the Research
Institute of Wildlife Ecology at Vetmeduni Vienna, in cooperation with the
Leibnitz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, used a special
method based on the chemical analysis of tail hairs to investigate the dietary
habits of the animals. The analysis allowed them to determine the composition
of the diet of each of the three species, which led to the discovery of
increased dietary competition in the winter months.
The chemical analysis of the tail hairs revealed that
Przewalski's horses and domestic horses are year-round grazers. Khulan, on the
other hand, switch from grazing in the summer to a high proportion of foliage
in the winter. "When food becomes scarce in the long winter months,
competition can be expected especially between the two species of horse,"
explains Martina Burnik Šturm.
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