Location: Poisonous Plant Research
Project Number: 2080-21500-001-008-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2025
End Date: Aug 31, 2028
Objective:
Poisonous plants naturally occur on western rangelands and cause significant livestock deaths and may also negatively impact wildlife. The cooperators at Utah State University (USU) and USDA ARS Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory (PPRL) share a common goal in serving livestock producers and others to help mitigate these losses. ARS scientists at the PPRL work with the USU extension as well as the veterinary school and the state diagnostic lab to aid livestock producers with the goal of preventing or reducing the harmful impacts of poisonous plants to grazing animals. The Agricultural Experiment Station supports the research mission at the PPRL by growing and harvesting forages to support and accomplish research at the PPRL. To aid livestock producers with the goal of preventing or reducing the harmful impacts of poisonous plants to grazing livestock we plan to use chemistry and DNA metabarcoding as tools to aid in diagnostic investigations associated with livestock losses. Additionally we plan to investigate the diet composition of grazing herbivores including livestock and wildlife through fecal DNA metabarcoding to provide a better understanding of diet composition and the utilization of poisonous plants in the diet. In general diets of livestock and wildlife have not been well investigated in a global nontargeted approach. We propose to investigate the diet composition through fecal DNA metabarcoding for cattle and sheep as well as wildlife, including elk and deer, in several different plant communities infested with different poisonous plants. This type of engagement/information is critical to livestock producers and land managers to stave off costly animal losses.
Objectives: 1. To provide forages to accomplish mission critical research at the PPRL. 2. To utilize chemistry and DNA metabarcoding as diagnostic tools to aid in investigations associated with livestock losses. 3. To determine the diet of grazing livestock and wildlife through fecal DNA metabarcoding from rangelands infested with different toxic plants including Delphinium, Lupinus, Oxytropis, and Zigadenus.
Approach:
Forages including alfalfa and small grains will be produced to support mission critical research. This includes goods and services associated with fees to produce forages for research including irrigating, tilling, planting, fertlizer and chemical application, crop production, and harvesting.
As poisoning events occur, the cooperators will aid in the collection of diagnostic samples including rumen contents, feces, and ear wax being sent to the PPRL for evaluation. Chemistry and or DNA metabarcoding will be performed on these samples to aid in diagnosis as well as to further validate these techniques in a veterinary diagnostic lab setting.
Locations will be identified that have significant populations of select poisonous plants such as Delphinium, Lupinus, Oxytropis, and Zigadenus that are associated with historical livestock losses. Feces from livestock and wildlife will be collected at each of the locations five times throughout the growing season. Timing of sampling will be based upon the 16 day forage production curve which is determined from the range analysis platform from Forage Explorer. DNA barcoding will be performed using the transfer RNA of leucine to investigate the plants within the diet. Analysis of barcoding results will be performed to determine utilization of poisonous plants and how diet may change as a function of season and environmental factors.