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Determining Optimal Sampling Schemes to Study Red Deer Diets by Fecal Analysis

2003; EDP Sciences; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

2183-0363

Maria Maia, Francisco Rego, Francisco Sousa Machado,

Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock

Studies on red deer feeding ecology have been conducted in Portugal for several years and in various locations using microhistological techniques on feces. These analyses are extremely time consuming requiring the optimization of the multistage sampling scheme used. Estimates of variance components based on samples from red deer pellets in Vila Vicosa (southern Portugal) indicate that variability among individual pellets of the same pellet group is minimal. It is concluded that using 100 plant fragments observed per pellet, a minimum number of 4 pellet groups provides a reasonable compromise between precision and cost.