BRIEF REPORT Plant DNA Sequences from Feces: Potential Means for Assessing Diets of Wild Primates

Analyses of plant DNA in feces provides a promising, yet largelyunexplored, means of documenting the diets of elusive primates. Herewe demonstrate the promise and pitfalls of this approach using DNAextracted from fecal samples of wild western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) andblack and white colobus monkeys (Colobus guereza). From these DNAextracts we amplified, cloned, and sequenced small segments ofchloroplast DNA (part of the rbcL gene) and plant nuclear DNA (ITS-2).The obtained sequences were compared to sequences generated fromknown plant samples and to those in GenBank to identify plant taxain the feces. With further optimization, this method could provide a basicevaluation of minimum primate dietary diversity even when knowledgeof local flora is limited. This approach may find application in studiescharacterizing the diets of poorly-known, unhabituated primate speciesor assaying consumer–resource relationships in an ecosystem. Am. J.Primatol. 69:1–7, 2007.