Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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Animal poop may seem inconsequential but it supplies scientists with precious information: from a tiger’s identity to elephant stress levels. Most recently, faeces of Royle’s pika – a small rabbit-like mammal found in India’s Himalaya – reveal that these animals survive almost entirely on specific plants that grow only in cold, wet conditions; plants that are not expected to tolerate the warmer weather that climate change would bring. Warmer weather can alter plant communities in high-altitude ecosystems like the Himalaya and also affect animals that depend on them. For instance, fossil records reveal that cold-loving pikas dwelt in parts of then-frigid Africa, too. However, warmer weather around 5-10 million years ago reduced the ‘C3’ plants (ancient plants that use more water during photosynthesis and can survive only in cold and wet climes) that the pikas ate, leading to the animals’ extinction. In such times, unravelling animal diets is crucial, and researchers at Bengaluru’s Indian Insitute of Science and the University of Sheffield deciphered the plant families that the Royle’s pika – which prefers rocky areas, especially tali (piles of rock that accumulate at mountain bases) – eats. They collected 172 pika faeces (pellets) from five locations in Uttarakhand including the Nandadevi Biosphere Reserve. In the laboratory, they used a method known as DNA ‘metabarcoding’, which helps identify the DNA of plant species in animal faeces.
