Poop-Scooping for Coyote Population Studies

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Use your pooper-scooper with pride

SARA ABDULLA

Michael Kohn of the University of California, Los Angeles, California and colleagues, have been collecting coyote droppings in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles-- not out of civic pride or childish perversity, but in order to estimate just how many of these wild, dog-like carnivores live in the area.

Analysis of the genetic material contained within animal feces is a quick and powerful new way of assessing the population size, sex ratios, and familial relationships of rare and endangered large mammals, as the researchers explain in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

Data on population dynamics are essential for conservation management and ecological research. But existing methods of collecting such information are fraught with problems. Direct counts can be inaccurate because individuals are hard to detect, and trapping can be difficult and injurious to the animals concerned.

This is why Kohn and colleagues extracted DNA from hundreds of droppings that they collected from paths and roadways where coyotes, like most carnivores, defecate to mark their territorial boundaries. The team then screened these genetic blueprints for species-, sex- and individual-specific markers.

Their survey turned up approximately equal numbers of males and females and about the same amount of multiple samples from each individual. So whereas male coyotes, just like domesticated dogs, urinate far more than females, both sexes defecate equally frequently. The researchers were able to work out the probable size of the coyote population from the number of genetically unique individuals they had detected.

To compare the feces-genotyping method of population analysis with more conventional population analysis methods, Kohn’s group also surveyed the same area using trapping, tracking and photography. The results showed that studying feces provides a reliable, non-invasive way of taking a social snapshot of mammals such as coyotes, where all the individuals defecate at the same rate, regardless of sex, age or social status. "The systematic collection of faeces followed by molecular typing," the group conclude, "provides a near instantaneous estimate of population size, sex ratio, relatedness and [geographical] range that avoids the problems of capture and handling." Never has the pooper scooper had such power!



© Macmillan Magazines Ltd 1999 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE
 
Interesting, very interesting!!

i know some of the old timers -- you know the type, the kind who moved to California when the state population was 502 (499 straight and 3 gay), the kind who hate camouflage, etc. -- they discoverd that feces was a good way of checking population and sex, also. Only they didn't have fancy-boy CollegeBrat DNA and RNA and molecular-up-your-academics, BOY! to help out. Nah, they simply chewed on a piece of coyote s**t for a few seconds.
 
Ohhh...

you mean the ones that start every post with:

"Ive been hunting coyotes for XX years and blah blah blah... yada yada ... blah blah"

not to say that experience isnt valuable, but when thats the main piece of evidence that they have backing their statement and/or is their first part of their diatribe response, then right away I know its time to put the hip-waders on. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Edit:

Allow me to re-iterate that there IS great value in experience that simply goes without question, however the above "scenario" played-out while in a discussion setting, is highly-predictive of the outcome.
 
Hahahhaah, right, right!!

"There I was, with a bowl full of apple-cherry ta-backy, sippin' on Jim Beam....(course, you ain't gonna believe this, BUT----)"

So after re-reading that article, i'm wondering: If poopin' on roads and trails is a way of marking territory, does that preclude some of the less established coyotes from doing the same? Do you have to be of a certain status before it is okay if you drop load on an important roadway boundary? Are the geeks and weaklings of the population destined to sneak their droppings behind boulders and shrubs, off the beaten path?
 
Infidel,
Like the infidels of bible days, you ain't doing or saying anything to help the cause here. Please clean up your act or go back to that other board that I can not remember the name of.
 
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