Feces Analysis and Its Role in Wildlife Research

Traditional feces analysis method can be applied to the research of population size,home range,food composition,parasites and diseases in wild animals.Due to the invasive tissue and blood sampling in the wild animals is no long practicable in the field,fecal samples are easy to collect,easy to keep after simple treatment and noninvasive to the wild animals,the modern fecal analysis makes many studies possible with the development of the molecular biology technology.This paper reviewed the fecal analysis and its application in the fields of studying home range,food compositions,digestive dynamics,disease and parasite,population survey,population genetics,minimum viable population,food chain and food web,energy flow and material flow of wild animals.