关键词: 食草动物食性, 显微组织分析, 植物碎片, 装片技术

Abstract: Microhistological fecal analysis is an important technique for investigating herbivore diets. The conventional mounting technique uses Hoyer's mounting medium to seal the plant fragment to the slide. However,Hoyer's seal liquid inevitably causes plant fragments to crinkle and overlap during the mounting process because of the liquid's stickiness, which leads to a poor identification of sample plant fragments. To reduce this problem,we developed a new mounting technique to replace Hoyer's mounting medium:non-viscous saturated NaCl. We performed a controlled experiment in which ten slides of the same feces sample were made and observed,using new and the conventional mounting technique. The percentage of crinkled fragments declined from 10.4% (conventional mounting technique) to 3.8% (new mounting technique) and of overlapping fragments from 25% (conventional mounting technique)to 8.1% (new mounting technique). We recommend the new mounting technique over the conventional mounting technique.

Key words: Herbivore diet, Microhistological analysis, Mounting slide techniques, Plant fragment