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  • Title: Differentiating between Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) and northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) scats through analysis of faecal DNA.
    Author: Waite JN, Waits LP, Bozza M, Andrews RD.
    Journal: Mol Ecol Resour; 2011 Jan; 11(1):166-70. PubMed ID: 21429117.
    Abstract:
    We describe a method to determine the species of pinniped from faeces collected from sympatric Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) and northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) rookeries using newly developed species-specific primers that amplify a 667-669-base pair segment from the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome B (cytB) gene region. The primers yielded the correct species in 100% of tissue samples from 10 known animals and 100% of faecal samples from 13 known animals. Species could be identified unequivocally for 87.7% of faecal samples from 122 unknown individuals. The ability to differentiate between scats of sympatrically breeding Steller sea lions and northern fur seals will contribute to the range-wide knowledge of the foraging strategies of both species as well as allow researchers to examine the niche partitioning and potential resource competition between the two predators.
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