IntBIO: Integrative Wildlife Nutrition: From Molecules and Microbes to Macro-Ecology

IntBIO：野生动物综合营养：从分子和微生物到宏观生态学

• 批准号: 2217317
• 负责人: Katherine Amato
• 金额: $ 218.86万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2217317&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IntBIO; Integrative; Wildlife; Nutrition; Molecules

Food availability often varies extensively in different habitats and across time (i.e., seasons and years). To obtain sufficient nutrients and energy to survive and reproduce, animals must adjust their feeding and nutritional strategies. Most animal feeding ecology research only provides insight into part of an animal’s strategy, but this team will integrate their diverse research expertise—ranging from molecules to behavior to ecosystems—to provide a more holistic understanding. More specifically, the investigators will study six species of primates across seasons in two tropical forests and will integrate data that quantifies how each individual moves through their habitats to find food, what foods it chooses, how the food is digested by the animal itself and by microbes that live in its gut, and how this ultimately affects its physiology and health. Ultimately, the researchers aim to identify a unified principle of animal nutrition that can improve our understanding of how animals respond and adapt to food scarcity. In addition, it will also advance knowledge of microbe-microbe interactions and host-microbe interactions in wild animals and provide new applications for multi-scale data analysis tools. The project will provide hands-on interdisciplinary training to postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, park wardens, and community members, the majority of whom will belong to underrepresented groups in STEM. This project will also involve multiple outreach activities, including workshops on primate ecology, microbiology, genomics, nutrition, and conservation for public urban middle school students. The project will target six species of wild frugivorous primates--pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina), redtail monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius), grey-cheeked mangbeys (Lophocebus albigena), blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis), orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii), and white-bearded gibbons (Hylobates albibarbus)--occupying two long-term field sites (Tuanan Biological Research Station, Indonesia and Kibale National Park, Uganda). Leveraging data collected continuously across seasons at each site for two years, the project will determine the extent to which feeding behavior, nutrient intake, physiology, and microbiome function shift in response to food availability in individual wild, non-human primate species over time (Intra-species Level), compare the relative importance of behavioral, physiological, and microbial strategies for modulating nutrition among sympatric non-human primate species (Inter-species Level), and determine the extent to which non-human primate strategies for modulating nutrition are conserved between forests with different patterns of food availability (Ecosystem Level). The project will facilitate the development of improved models of primate nutrition that can be used to identify unified principles of nutrition that can be tested and applied across a range of ecological contexts and scales.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.

不同栖息地和不同时间（即季节和年份）的食物供应量往往存在很大差异。为了获得足够的营养和能量来生存和繁殖，动物必须调整其摄食和营养策略。大多数动物饲养生态学研究仅提供对动物策略的一部分的见解，但该团队将整合他们多样化的研究专业知识（从分子到行为再到生态系统），以提供更全面的理解。更具体地说，研究人员将在两个热带森林中跨季节研究六种灵长类动物，并整合数据，量化每个个体如何在其栖息地寻找食物、它选择什么食物、动物本身和肠道微生物如何消化食物，以及这最终如何影响其生理和健康。最终，研究人员的目标是确定动物营养的统一原则，以提高我们对动物如何应对和适应食物短缺的理解。此外，它还将增进对野生动物中微生物-微生物相互作用和宿主-微生物相互作用的认识，并为多尺度数据分析工具提供新的应用。该项目将为博士后研究员、研究生和本科生、公园管理员和社区成员提供实践跨学科培训，其中大多数属于 STEM 中代表性不足的群体。该项目还将涉及多项外展活动，包括为公立城市中学生举办有关灵长类动物生态学、微生物学、基因组学、营养和保护的研讨会。该项目将针对六种野生果食灵长类动物——猪尾猕猴（Macaca nemestrina）、红尾猴（Cercopithecus ascanius）、灰颊鹳（Lophocebus albigena）、蓝猴（Cercopithecus mitis）、猩猩（Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii）和白须猴 长臂猿 (Hylobates albibarbus)——占据两个长期野外地点（印度尼西亚图安安生物研究站和乌干达基巴莱国家公园）。利用两年来在每个地点连续收集的数据，该项目将确定个体野生非人类灵长类动物的摄食行为、营养摄入、生理和微生物功能随着时间的推移响应食物供应而变化的程度（种内水平），比较行为、生理和微生物策略在同域非人类灵长类动物中调节营养的相对重要性 （物种间水平），并确定具有不同食物供应模式的森林之间非人类灵长类动物调节营养策略的保存程度（生态系统水平）。该项目将促进改进灵长类动物营养模型的开发，该模型可用于确定统一的营养原则，这些原则可以在一系列生态环境和规模中进行测试和应用。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。