Integrating Metagenomic and Morphological Approaches to Assess Diet and Trophic Niche Overlap in Galápagos Land Iguanas

Understanding the trophic requirements of critically endangered species is essential to guide effective conservation strategies. In this study, we provide the first assessment of the Galápagos Pink Land Iguana (Conolophus marthae) diet and quantify its potential trophic overlap with the syntopic C. subcristatus. By combining high-throughput sequencing with traditional morphological analysis of fecal samples, we identified a total of 17 plant families consumed by the two species. Our results show that C. marthae exhibits a narrower trophic niche than C. subcristatus, while both species share key plant families leading to a high dietary overlap. These findings highlight the complementarity of metagenomic and morphological approaches in capturing dietary diversity and provide critical insights for conservation planning, including prioritization of key food resources and evaluation of potential interspecific competition.