In Flies' Innards, Vital Clues to Biodiversity - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Erich Feldmeier on 08 Jan 13"How many mammal species live in the forest? It sounds like a simple question, but the actual distributions of shy, small or rare mammals are often murky, confounding conservationists seeking to protect them. Yet a paper published online on Tuesday in the journal Molecular Ecology explores a new way to track biodiversity: by capturing flies that feed on carcasses. The flies' stomachs offer DNA diaries of their recent meals, giving scientists clues to which animals live and die in the forest. "The animals are there, but you just don't see them," said Fabian Leendertz, a wildlife epidemiologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and an author of the paper. "Those flies will find them and will tell us what is there"