Changing landscapes drive dietary diversification in Asian elephants

Abstract

Abstract Rapid changes in land-use patterns bring significant challenges to wildlife, particularly for large herbivores, such as Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus ). Despite the impact of land-use change being widely studied globally, its effect on the dietary patterns of umbrella species, such as the Asian elephant, remains limited. Therefore, this study employed high-throughput trnL DNA metabarcoding to characterise and compare the diets of Asian elephants across two distinct landscapes: (1) northeast Peninsular Malaysia, a landscape undergoing large-scale development and logging (development-logging landscapes, DLL), and (2) southern Peninsular Malaysia, an oil palm-dominated landscape with remnant forests without major logging or land-use changes (oil palm-forest landscapes, OPFL). We analysed 60 individual faecal samples, yielding 1,737,956 high-quality sequences for the DLL and 1,454,807 for the OPFL. Analysis of frequency of occurrence (FOO) and relative read abundance (RRA) revealed a significant variation in elephant diets between the two landscapes, with the DLL exhibiting higher richness and diversity than the OPFL. This study demonstrates the dietary flexibility of Asian elephants, showing their ability to adapt to environmental changes in DLL by modifying their feeding habits according to available food resources. The findings also reveal the diet-related dimensions of human–elephant conflict across contrasting landscapes and highlight the need for strategic landscape management, including habitat restoration and ecological corridors, to reduce conflict and support long-term conservation.