Doctoral Dissertation Research: The effects of nutritional ecology and feeding competition on growth and development

博士论文研究：营养生态学和摄食竞争对生长发育的影响

• 批准号: 2120910
• 负责人: Shannon McFarlin
• 金额: $ 1.58万
• 依托单位: George Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-15 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2120910&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; effects; nutritional

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Learning what to eat, how, and where to find food are significant challenges that arise over the course of development. Such challenges can also be social, when individuals have to compete with others for access to food. Yet how feeding competition affects food choice and developmental outcomes is poorly understood, particularly in scenarios where food is abundant and distributed evenly across an environment. This doctoral dissertation research tests how variation in feeding ecologies, including food competition, affects food choice and developmental outcomes among wild juvenile non-human primates inhabiting changing ecological and demographic environments. Results contribute to existing conservation management plans and provide concrete training opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students. Results will be disseminated widely to academic and non-academic audiences.The proposal merges theory from nutritional ecology and life history to investigate the significance of feeding competition among developing non-human primates, who lack the foraging competence of adults. Major objectives include investigating: 1) variation in food nutritional properties along ecological gradients; 2) development of adult-like foraging competence; and 3) impacts of feeding competition on dietary development of infant and juvenile individuals. The researchers integrate novel and long-term data on food nutritional properties and feeding behavior sampled across a diversity of habitat types. They collect novel nutritional data from plant food samples as well as feeding data generated through long-term monitoring and new behavioral observations. Results inform understanding of the evolution of primate juvenile periods, by improving our understanding of how immatures are impacted by feeding competition, even in contexts where food is apparently abundant. Further, this research generates insights regarding developmental responses to changes in ecology, which are important for predicting population dynamics and associated implications for conservation efforts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项是根据2021年《美国救援计划法》（第117-2）的全部或部分资助的。学习在整个发展过程中遇到的食物，如何以及在哪里找到食物是巨大的挑战。当个人必须与他人竞争以获取食物时，这种挑战也可能是社交的。然而，喂养竞争如何影响食物的选择和发展成果的理解很少，尤其是在食物丰富且在整个环境中均匀分布的情况。这项博士学位论文研究测试了喂养生态的差异（包括食品竞争）如何影响食物的选择和居住在不断变化的生态和人口环境中的野生少年非人类灵长类动物的发展结果。结果有助于现有的保护管理计划，并为研究生和本科生提供具体的培训机会。结果将被广泛传播到学术和非学术受众。该提议合并了营养生态学和生活史的理论，以调查发展非人类灵长类动物（缺乏成年人觅食能力的非人类灵长类动物的喂养竞争的重要性。主要目标包括研究：1）生态梯度沿岸食品营养特性的变化； 2）发展类似成人的觅食能力； 3）喂养竞争对婴儿和少年个体饮食发展的影响。研究人员整合了有关食品营养特性的新颖和长期数据，并在各种栖息地类型中采样了喂养行为。他们从植物食品样本中收集新的营养数据，以及通过长期监测和新的行为观察产生的喂养数据。结果，即使在食物显然很丰富的情况下，结果也可以提高我们对喂养竞争的影响的理解，从而了解灵长类青少年时期的演变。此外，这项研究对生态变化的发展反应产生了见解，这对于预测人口动态和对保护工作的相关影响至关重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛影响的评估来通过评估来支持的。