ReviewMolecular ecology resources2023
The predator problem and PCR primers in molecular dietary analysis: Swamped or silenced; depth or breadth?
Review in Molecular ecology resources, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Metabarcoding reveals the dietary diversity and food web structure of spider functional guilds in a highly diverse subtropical forest.Oecologia · 2026Article
- Intraguild Interactions Drive the Dynamics of a Complex Community of Globally Invasive Ant Species.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- DIY: A Practical Field-to-Sequencer Workflow for Metabarcoding the Diet of Terrestrial Carnivore Species.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Revealing seasonal dietary niche overlap among sympatric large carnivores using DNA metabarcoding.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Unravelling Hidden Trophic Interactions Among Sea Urchin Juveniles and Macroinvertebrates by DNA Amplification.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- The dynamic nature of cereal food webs challenges the suitability of snapshot sampling for assessing ecosystem services.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Spatio-Temporal Variation in Diet Among Age and Sex Cohorts of a Model Generalist Bird Species, the Great TitEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Threatened endemic arthropods and vertebrates partition their diets with non-native ants in an isolated island ecosystem.Ecology · 2025Article
- Understanding Trophic Interactions in a Warming World by Bridging Foraging Ecology and Biomechanics with Network Science.Integrative and comparative biology · 2024Article
- Otterly delicious: Spatiotemporal variation in the diet of a recovering population of Eurasian otters (Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- The predator problem and PCR primers in molecular dietary analysis: Swamped or silenced; depth or breadth?Molecular ecology resources · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Dietary metabarcoding has vastly improved our ability to analyse the diets of animals, but it is hampered by a plethora of technical limitations including potentially reduced data output due to the disproportionate amplification of the DNA of the focal predator, here termed "the predator problem". We review the various methods commonly used to overcome this problem, from deeper sequencing to exclusion of predator DNA during PCR, and how they may interfere with increasingly common multipredator-taxon studies. We suggest that multiprimer approaches with an emphasis on achieving both depth and breadth of prey detections may overcome the issue to some extent, although multitaxon studies require further consideration, as highlighted by an empirical example. We also review several alternative methods for reducing the prevalence of predator DNA that are conceptually promising but require additional empirical examination. The predator problem is a key constraint on molecular dietary analyses but, through this synthesis, we hope to guide researchers in overcoming this in an effective and pragmatic way.
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Registered trials
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