Dieta dos Quelônios (Testudines, Podocnemididae: Podocnemis Spp.), no Rio Andirá, Barreirinha, Amazonas, Brasil

Abstract

The study of the natural diet of chelonians can reveal potential items to be increased in regional rations or to be supplied fresh to these animals, also proving to be important in the protection and recovery of habitats (riparian forests). Furthermore, there are few studies of the food items that are part of the Podocnemis diet. Therefore, from 2019 to 2021, we studied the diet of Podocnemididae in the Andirá River, Barreirinha, Amazonas, both for the traditional knowledge of the riverside people, in the communities Granja Ceres and Distrito do Piraí, through snowball methods, free list and social network, as for the knowledge of the food items ingested through the stomach contents, of the individuals captured in five excursions, in different hydrological periods. Of these, physical-chemical analyzes of the plant species (fruits and seeds) were carried out, verifying the availability of food in the flooded forests and igapós. In addition, we studied the feeding of young tracajás (P. unifilis) and turtles (P. expansa) in nature and in community farming systems. Resulting in the indication of 83 plant ethnospecies, of these 59 were cataloged (55 genera and 29 botanical families) as a result of the knowledge of the riverside people. The capitarí (Handroanthus barbatus) was the best known. With emphasis on the families Fabaceae, Myrtaceae and Arecaceae for contemplating more species. Among the cataloged plants, those previously described for Podocnemis species in the literature belonged to 22 families (76%), 26 genera (47%) and 30 species (51%).. Based on physicochemical characterization and availability in riparian forests, six species showed higher protein levels and proved to be important to be used in regional diets, they are, in descending order: Handroanthus barbatus (capitari), Astrocaryum gynacanthum (mumbaca), Pouteria campanulata (caramurirana), Physalis angulata (camapu), Crateva benthamii (catauari) and Dalbergia inundata (tucunaré envira). P. unifilis and P. expansa hatchlings submitted to two treatments: one with 100% commercial feed and the other with 50% commercial feed and 50% wild fruits, showed no difference in weight gain, which makes the strategy of replacing 50% of the conventional feed by local fruits efficient. In the stomach analysis, the most important food items in the diet of P. unifilis were: fruits (33.75%) and seeds (23.97%) (flood, ebb and drought). For P. sextuberculata: seeds (44.82%) and fruits (36.61%) (ebb) and seeds (44.52%) and roots (16.36%) (drought). For P. erythrocephala: seed (22.47%) and fruits (19.60%) (ebb). The species P. erythrocephala and P. sextuberculata showed a difference in the diet between males and females, the species P. unifilis showed no difference between sexes. For P. unifilis, there was a difference in the diet when comparing the hydrological periods (flood x ebb) and (flood x drought), but in the seasonal periods ebb x dry there was no difference. For the species P. sextuberculata in the comparison of the ebb x dry seasons there was no difference in the diet. The three species proved to be generalists, omnivores with a predominance of plant material in their diets, based on the items found in the stomach contents.