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

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。学习吃什么，怎么吃，在哪里找食物是在发展过程中出现的重大挑战。这种挑战也可能是社会性的，当个体必须与其他个体竞争获得食物时。然而，人们对喂养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整个环境中均匀分布的情况下。本博士论文研究了包括食物竞争在内的喂养生态变化如何影响生活在不断变化的生态和人口环境中的野生非人灵长类动物幼崽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。该建议将营养生态学和生活史的理论结合起来，研究发育中的非人灵长类动物之间觅食竞争的意义，这些灵长类动物缺乏成年动物的觅食能力。主要研究目标包括：1)食物营养特性在生态梯度上的变化；2)发育成虫觅食能力；3)饲养竞争对幼鱼个体日粮发育的影响。研究人员整合了不同栖息地类型的食物营养特性和摄食行为的新数据和长期数据。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。通过提高我们对幼体如何受到食物竞争影响的理解，即使在食物明显丰富的情况下，研究结果也有助于理解灵长类动物幼年期的进化。此外，该研究还对生态变化的发育响应产生了见解，这对于预测种群动态和保护工作的相关含义非常重要。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.