Andrey V. Frolov‡, Maria S. Vishnevskaya§|, Heidi Viljanen¶, Olivier Montreuil#, Lilia A. Akhmetova|Corresponding author: Andrey Frolov ( afrolov@zin.ru ) © Andrey Frolov, Maria Vishnevskaya, Heidi Viljanen, Olivier Montreuil, Lilia Akhmetova. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Frolov AV, Vishnevskaya MS, Viljanen H, Montreuil O, Akhmetova LA (2023) New data on trophic associations of dung beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae) and lemurs (Primates, Lemuroidea) in Madagascar. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e117037 |  |
Resource use and diet specialization of Madagascan dung beetles has been little studied especially concerning the possible associations between specific dung beetle and lemur species. Pilot studies have demonstrated that amplicon metagenomics is a promising tool for the lemur inventories. In the present contribution, we report new results of the gut content analysis of three endemic Madagascan dung beetles species: Helictopleurus clouei (Harold), Epilissus apotolamproides (Lebis) and Nanos dubitatus (Lebis). Amplicon metagenomics revealed trophic associations of these species with Eulemur sanfordi (Archbold), Eu. fulvus (É.Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire), and Cheirogaleus crossleyi (Grandidier), respectively. The reads of other mammal species, revealed by the analysis, including putative contaminations, are discussed.