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Sympatric mixed feeders are therefore expected to differ in their use of forage resources, yet specific plant taxa underlying these dietary differences remain poorly resolved. Here, we used dual\u2010locus DNA metabarcoding (\n                    <jats:italic>rbc<\/jats:italic>\n                    L and\n                    <jats:italic>trn<\/jats:italic>\n                    L) to characterise and compare dry\u2010season diets of African elephants (\n                    <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">\n                      <jats:italic>Loxodonta africana<\/jats:italic>\n                    <\/jats:styled-content>\n                    ) and impalas (\n                    <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">\n                      <jats:italic>Aepyceros melampus<\/jats:italic>\n                    <\/jats:styled-content>\n                    ) in a semi\u2010arid savanna ecosystem in South Africa. Despite substantial differences in body size and digestive physiology, dietary alpha diversity did not differ significantly between herbivores for either marker. In contrast, FOO\u2010based Jaccard beta\u2010diversity analyses revealed significant differences in dietary composition between species for both markers, with the strongest differentiation detected using\n                    <jats:italic>trn<\/jats:italic>\n                    L. Pianka's niche overlap index and relative read abundance analyses supported these patterns, showing lower overlap between species than within\u2010species. Both herbivores relied heavily on woody taxa during the dry season. Elephants consumed a narrower assemblage dominated by browse genera such as\n                    <jats:italic>Grewia<\/jats:italic>\n                    ,\n                    <jats:italic>Dichrostachys<\/jats:italic>\n                    and\n                    <jats:italic>Vachellia<\/jats:italic>\n                    , whereas impalas incorporated a more compositionally diverse mixture of woody, graminoid and forb taxa. Our findings demonstrate that dry\u2010season dietary differentiation between these mixed feeders is associated less with differences in overall dietary breadth than with fine\u2010scale taxonomic differences and contrasting use of woody, graminoid and forb resources. These results highlight the potential importance of maintaining taxonomic and growth\u2010form heterogeneity in forage resources to support savanna herbivore assemblages under increasingly variable environmental conditions.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1002\/ece3.74487","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,11]],"date-time":"2026-10-11T23:35:36Z","timestamp":1791761736000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Dual\u2010Locus Metabarcoding Reveals Dry\u2010Season Dietary Differentiation Between Elephants and Impalas in a South African Savanna"],"prefix":"10.1002","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0003-7725-2919","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kyle R.","family":"van Wyk","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management North\u2010West University  Potchefstroom South 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