Seasonal changes in leaf lipid and fatty acid composition of nine plants consumed by two African herbivores.

In the wild, nutrients from plants provide for the requirements of all herbivores and ultimately all animals, yet little work has been published on how such nutrients change with environmental conditions. Plant lipids are nutritionally important for browsing mammals, initially with respect to taste and palatability, but ultimately how they fulfill a variety of functions. This study reports on seasonal changes in fatty acid (FA) profiles of nine plants commonly consumed by two herbivore species (kudu and impala) in South Africa. The FA composition of the plants varied with both season and plant species but not with geographic location. The overall profile of FA provided a maximum of n-3-essential FA during the transition and wet seasons, but there was no parallel increase in n-6-essential FA.