Tiger diet in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve: how do metabarcoding and mechanical sorting compare?

Abstract Accurately describing large carnivore diets is crucial for understanding trophic interactions and developing targeted conservation strategies. Most studies have relied on traditional dietary analysis based on mechanical sorting and identification of undigested prey remains, a method known to be error‐prone and ecologically biased. Here, we compare the diet of tigers ( Panthera tigris ) using non‐invasively collected scats from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in India, analyzed through mechanical sorting and DNA metabarcoding. We found that DNA metabarcoding outperformed mechanical sorting by detecting more overall prey and rare prey species, revealing greater prey diversity. The study indicated that tigers mainly subsist on wild prey such as sambar ( Rusa unicolor ) and chital ( Axis axis). However, domestic cattle contributed the largest proportion of prey biomass to their diet. Our findings demonstrate that DNA metabarcoding is an efficient, effective, and powerful approach that overcomes many of the biases associated with mechanical sorting, providing an accessible and particularly useful tool for carnivore dietary studies based on non‐invasive samples. The increased frequency of livestock depredation compared to previous studies emphasizes the urgency of taking active mitigation measures to safeguard this population.