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.

该奖项的全部或部分资金来源于《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）。了解吃什么、如何吃以及在哪里找到食物是开发过程中出现的重大挑战。当个人必须与他人竞争食物时，此类挑战也可能是社会性的。然而，人们对进食竞争如何影响食物选择和发育结果知之甚少，特别是在食物丰富且在环境中分布均匀的情况下。本博士论文研究测试了喂养生态的变化（包括食物竞争）如何影响居住在不断变化的生态和人口环境中的野生幼年非人类灵长类动物的食物选择和发育结果。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。结果将广泛传播给学术和非学术受众。该提案融合了营养生态学和生活史的理论，以研究缺乏成年觅食能力的发育中的非人类灵长类动物之间的进食竞争的重要性。主要目标包括调查：1）食品营养特性随生态梯度的变化； 2）类似成人的觅食能力的发展； 3）喂养竞争对婴儿和青少年个体饮食发育的影响。研究人员整合了在不同栖息地类型中采样的有关食物营养特性和摄食行为的新颖和长期数据。他们从植物性食物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。研究结果有助于了解灵长类动物幼年期的进化，提高我们对幼年动物如何受到摄食竞争的影响的理解，即使在食物明显丰富的情况下也是如此。此外，这项研究还得出了有关生态变化的发育反应的见解，这对于预测种群动态以及对保护工作的相关影响非常重要。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。