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自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。学习吃什么、如何吃以及在哪里找到食物是发展过程中出现的重大挑战。这种挑战也可能是社会性的，当个人不得不与其他人竞争食物的时候。然而，人们对食物竞争如何影响食物选择和发展成果知之甚少，特别是在食物丰富且均匀分布在一个环境中的情况下。这篇博士论文研究了摄食生态的变化，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的食物选择和发育结果。成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。研究结果将广泛传播给学术界和非学术界的受众。该提案融合了营养生态学和生活史的理论，以探讨发育中的非人类灵长类动物之间的觅食竞争的意义，这些非人类灵长类动物缺乏成年动物的觅食能力。主要目标包括：1)食物营养特性沿生态梯度的变化；2)成体觅食能力的发展；3)摄食竞争对婴幼儿和青少年饮食发育的影响。研究人员整合了关于食物营养特性和取食行为的新的和长期的数据，这些数据在不同的栖息地类型上进行了采样。他们从植物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。结果有助于理解灵长类幼体时期的进化，因为我们更好地理解了幼体是如何受到摄食竞争的影响的，即使在食物明显充足的环境中也是如此。此外，这项研究产生了关于生态变化的发展反应的见解，这对于预测种群动态和相关的保护工作影响是重要的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。