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; 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.

食物的可用性通常在不同的栖息地和跨时间（即季节和年）中差异很大。为了获得足够的营养和能量来生存和繁殖，动物必须调整其喂养和营养策略。大多数动物喂养生态研究仅提供对动物策略的一部分的见解，但是该团队将融合他们的潜水员研究专业知识（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研究各个季节的六种私人物种，并将整合数据，以量化每个人如何穿越栖息地，以找到食物，选择哪种食物，食物本身以及生活在其肠道中的微生物以及最终如何影响其生理学和健康的食物。最终，研究人员旨在确定动物营养的统一原则，该原则可以提高我们对动物如何反应和适应粮食稀缺的理解。此外，它还将提高野生动物中微生物 - 微生物相互作用和宿主微叶相互作用的知识，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，公园看守和社区成员提供动手跨学科培训，其中大多数将属于STEM中代表性不足的团体。该项目还将涉及多种外展活动，包括有关私人生态学，微生物学，基因组学，营养和为公立城市中学学生的保护的研讨会。 The project will target six species of wild frugivorous privates--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） - 占据了两个长期野外现场（印度尼西亚的Tuanan生物研究站和乌干达基巴尔国家公园）。该项目将在每个站点连续收集的数据连续收集的数据，该项目将确定饲料行为，养分摄入量，生理学和微生物组功能在响应于单个野生野生，非人类灵长类动物的粮食可用性（内在种类水平）的响应中的响应程度（内在种类水平），比较行为，生理学，生理学策略的相对重要性，生理学策略和模式的相对重要性（种间水平），并确定非人类灵长类动物调节营养的策略的程度，在具有不同食物可用性模式（生态系统水平）的森林之间保存了多种程度。该项目将促进改进的灵长类动物营养模型的发展，可用于确定可以在一系列生态环境和规模上进行测试和应用的统一营养原则。本奖奖反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过评估基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估来审查Criteria的评估。