Trophic Ecology of a Threatened Specialist: Implications of the Dependence on Pappostipa frigida for the Conservation of Chinchilla chinchilla
Juan Pablo Castillo, Arturo Cortés, Fernando Novoa · 2025
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Description
Juan Pablo Castillo, Arturo Cortés, and Fernando Novoa study the diet of the short-tailed chinchilla in a 2025 paper. This critically endangered Andean rodent eats a narrow diet in the wild, but details were scarce. The team sampled plant availability around a high-Andean population and read the animals' diet from droppings across all seasons.
The diet proved extremely narrow and stable all year, with diversity scores near zero. One grass, Pappostipa frigida, made up more than seventy-seven percent of intake, and the chinchillas actively chose it in every season, while a shrub species was consistently avoided. Such rigid specialization leaves the species highly exposed to habitat change. Protecting that grassland, the authors argue, is essential to survival.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Juan Pablo Castillo, Arturo Cortés, Fernando Novoa |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 23 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |