A graduate student here at Dalhousie University is beginning some
field work on the amphibians in Fundy National Park. She is interested in
determining what, when, and where the amphibians are eating. She has
quadrates set up with drift fences and pit traps.
The student has asked me if there is any easy and safe way to study
the stomach contents of these animals without having to sacrifice them.
Her herps range in size from _Plethodon cinereus_ to _Rana catesbeiana_.
I've never done any stomach content analyses so I can't help her much with
the project. Can anyone out there help her?
What she needs to know is:
1. The easiest way to get stomach contents out of these anurans and
urodeles?
2. The simplest way to assess stomach contents, in terms of
nutritional worth? In other words, is it worth trying to get wet mass, dry
mass or volume on the contents? Or are such measurements considered totally
worthless compared to more thorough nutritional analysis (e.g., lipid
content, dry ash weight etc.)?
3. What are good references on stomach content analyses for adult
North American amphibians ? [Does anyone still do these types of
analyses?]
All help here would be greatly appreciated.
Yours truly,
Richard Wassersug
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology
Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3H 4H7
Tel. 902-494-2244
Fax 902-494-1212
