Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Fallback Foods in the Ecology of an Endangered Cercocebus Mangabey, the Sanje Mangabey of the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania

灵长类动物面临的挑战是实现均衡饮食，以满足营养需求，并可以在没有过度风险的情况下食用。在热带环境中，生存可能取决于找到高能量、高营养食物的替代品，比如只有季节性的成熟水果。这些重要的季节性替代品，被称为备用食物，被假设为营养低，毒素高，身体上难以加工，但可能是个体生存所必需的，并且可能选择了特定的形态和行为特征。然而，这个命题在自然条件下还没有得到很好的研究。该项目调查了濒临灭绝的桑杰白猴的备用食物使用情况，这种灵长类动物被限制在位于世界生物多样性热点之一的坦桑尼亚Udzungwa山脉的高季节性森林中。在12个月的时间里收集习惯组的行为和饮食数据，检查他们对食物供应季节性波动的适应性反应。据预测，他们会改变饮食，从高质量的水果转向毒素含量高的低质量食物，如种子和坚果（后备食物），这对生态构成了重大挑战。坦桑尼亚Sokoine大学每月对后备食品的营养和物理方面进行分析，包括脂肪、蛋白质、纤维、糖、毒素含量以及加工每种食品所需的力（一种衡量食品硬度的指标）。这些数据研究了这些灵长类动物如何应对食物短缺，同时保持对生存和繁殖成功至关重要的营养均衡饮食。这项研究还通过对坦桑尼亚合作者进行实地培训来转移能力，并与坦桑尼亚的一个教育机构建立伙伴关系。该项目通过确定该物种的生态需求，协助保护管理受到高度威胁的Sanje白眉猴，这对Udzungwa山脉国家公园健全的管理政策至关重要。

Primates are challenged to achieve a balanced diet that meets nutritional requirements and can be consumed without excessive risks. In tropical environments, survival may be contingent on finding alternatives to high-energy, high-nutrition foods such as ripe fruit that are only seasonally available. These crucial seasonal alternatives, referred to as fallback foods, are hypothesized to be nutritionally low, high in toxins, and physically difficult to process, but may be essential for survival of individuals and may have selected for particular morphological and behavioral traits. This proposition, however, has not been well studied under natural conditions. This project examines fallback food usage by endangered Sanje mangabeys, primates confined to highly seasonal forests of the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, located in one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Behavioral and dietary data are collected over 12 months on a habituated group, examining their adaptive responses to seasonal fluctuations in food availability. It is predicted that they alter their diet, switching from high quality fruits to foods of lower quality with high levels of toxins, such as seeds and nuts (fallback foods), representing significant ecological challenges. The nutritional and physical aspects of fallback foods are analyzed monthly at the Sokoine University in Tanzania for fat, protein, fiber, sugars, toxin content, and the force required to process each food item (a measure of food hardness). These data examine how these primates respond to food shortages while maintaining the nutritionally balanced diet essential to survival and reproductive success. This research also represents capacity transfer through in-field training of Tanzanian collaborators and establishes a partnership with a Tanzanian educational institution. The project assists in conservation management for the highly threatened Sanje mangabey by identifying the ecological requirements of this species, knowledge vital for sound management policies in the Udzungwa Mountains National Park.