Food for thought

They say you are what you eat, and a recent study in Molecular Ecology proves it. Endangered mountain caribou in the high mountains of the B.C. Interior feed on different lichens than caribou east of the mountains, in Alberta. The result is that the B.C. caribou have different gut microbes to digest their lichens of choice. The finding has big implications for efforts to save dwindling herds of endangered caribou, which increasingly involves penning them to keep them safe. Caribou in pens consume different lichens than their free-ranging counterparts, partly because it is difficult for volunteer lichen collectors to identify and collect the right lichens, and partly because penned caribou are also fed manufactured pellets. For B.C.’s mountain caribou to thrive, preservation efforts must focus on the old-growth forests that grow the hair lichens they rely on to get through the winter.