Gut content and food web analyses

Metabarcoding of stomach samples has become a common tool to reconstruct animal food webs. The advantage of this approach is that it can be applied to a partially digested biological material, which otherwise cannot be identified morphologically. Hence, entire prey communities, including rare species, can be identified from animal gut samples. Our analytical protocols only require a small subsample from guts or droppings to detect even traces of prey species.

We offer targeted DNA assays to scan for the presence of specific species across a multitude of potential predators, e.g. to identify which species feed on the invasive round goby Neogobius melanostomus. These assays can then be complemented with food web analysis based on DNA metabarcoding revealing the community present in gut samples, e.g. to identify the species consumed by the invasive round goby Neogobius melanostomus.

In the Publications section, you can find an updated list of Reports as well as Academic publications showing how our gut contents assays can be used for food web analysis.