Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Is Diet Selection By Greater Sage-Grouse Influenced By Biomass Availability Or Toxins?, Jacqueline Peña, Marcella Fremgen
Is Diet Selection By Greater Sage-Grouse Influenced By Biomass Availability Or Toxins?, Jacqueline Peña, Marcella Fremgen
McNair Scholars Research Journal
Foraging herbivores must meet nutritional requirements by not only finding enough plant biomass to consume, but also finding plants with high protein content and low concentrations of potentially toxic plant secondary metabolites (PSMs). Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter, sage-grouse) are sagebrush obligate herbivores that consume relatively high concentrations of PSMs. To meet their nutritional needs and avoid ingesting high amounts of PSMs, sage-grouse may select species of sagebrush for food that have lower concentrations of PSMs than a more abundant species with higher concentration of PSMs. Diet selection by sage-grouse may also be driven by chemical factors at finer scales …