Pengenalpastian diet gajah Asia (Elephas maximus) di Taman Negara National Park menggunakan analisis Metabarkod DNA TRNL

Abstract

Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is the largest terrestrial mammal listed in the endangered category on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Asian elephants are also known as mega- herbivore, which have enormous demands for food. Several factors such as sex, age, season, and daily activities of elephants influence the amount of food needed in an individual elephant. Captive elephants have limited choices of food on their daily basis compared to elephants in the wild. Elephants in captivity are fed according to a prepared feeding schedule, whereas wild elephants are free to choose their type of plants in their natural habitat. However, elephants in captivity still need a balanced diet appropriate to their sex and age. Previous studies on elephants’ diet were conducted using several conventional approaches such as field observations, in-depth interviews, and microhistological methods. There is no record of studies on the identification of elephants' dietary intake using DNA metabarcoding in Peninsular Malaysia. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify the plant diet intake of wild Asian elephants in Taman Negara National Park (TNNP) according to their sex and age using high throughput trnL DNA metabarcoding. In addition, this study was carried out to determine the differences between diets of wild and captive elephants based on data generated using trnL DNA metabarcoding. DNA extraction was performed using 24 fecal samples collected from Taman Negara National Park and the National Elephant Conservation Centre Kuala Gandah (NECC). In this study, sample from NECC was used as a positive control, to ensure that the results of this study are reliable. For the final sequencing analysis, a total of seven pooled samples consists of male adult, female adult, male subadult, female subadult, male juvenile, female juvenile, and captivity were then amplified, targeting the trnL region (50 to 150 base pair) and sequenced using the Illumina iSeq100 platform. CLC Genomic Workbench and PAST 4.02 software were used for data analysis. A total of 24 orders, 41 families, 233 genera, and 306 species of plants were successfully detected in the diet of Asian elephants. The most abundant plant genera consumed were Sporobolus (21.88%), Musa (21.48%), and Ficus (10.80%). According to the findings, male elephants were found to have less variation of plants compared to female elephants. Plants species identified also correlate with the nutrient benefits required by elephants. As for diet between age categories, subadult elephant was found to consume more plant species than adult dan juvenile elephants due to elephant growth process factor. The findings of this study can be used as guidance for the Department of Wildlife and National Park (DWNP) in the management of captive elephants, especially in NECC Kuala Gandah. Thus, will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the wild Asian elephants’ diet based on sex and age categories using DNA metabarcoding analysis.