BRC-BIO: Looking beyond the calorie: Nutritional ecology in a generalist predator

BRC-BIO：超越卡路里：通才捕食者的营养生态学

• 批准号: 2312718
• 负责人: Allison Cornell
• 金额: $ 48.62万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-01 至 2026-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2312718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: BRC; BIO; Looking; beyond; calorie

Calories are often treated as the primary unit of nutrition, but a growing body of evidence suggests that the specific nutrient composition of food may be a more important driver of foraging behavior in wildlife. Because nutrient composition varies with environmental conditions, climate change is likely to affect nutrient content of food. For predators, this means that a changing climate could alter the nutrition of their prey, and therefore, what prey they select. However, without baseline knowledge of how nutrients shift in response to changing environmental conditions, it is difficult to make predictions about predator behavior. Songbirds are common predators in many ecosystems that prey on a variety of insects and can easily be captured and observed for behavioral studies. This project will 1) assess macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, lipid) in prey and identify specific ratios of macronutrients that maximize nestling growth, 2) examine how the nutritional value of prey changes when reared in experimentally manipulated environmental conditions, and 3) examine whether changes in nutrition affect birds’ preference for prey. Because insects are consumed by many animals outside of birds, this work will have conservation implications for a wide range of taxa. The research team will include undergraduate students enrolled in relevant biology courses and paid undergraduate assistants. Students will develop independent projects related to the broader theme and travel to national conferences to present their work. This research experience will equip participants with skills in laboratory and field work and build students’ confidence to persist in STEM careers. Using a combination of manipulative laboratory experiments and an existing network of 100 Eastern bluebird nest-boxes, the researchers will examine how environmental conditions affect prey nutrient composition and whether these changes impact predator preference. This work will test the use of the nutritional geometric framework: a tool for assessing nutrition by utilizing ratios of nutrients to model how foods are combined to reach multidimensional nutritional targets that maximize organism performance. This framework is useful in modeling how diet changes as different food items change in availability or quality. By measuring the impact of prey macronutrients on nestling development in Objective 1, the researchers will identify multidimensional nutritional targets that maximize growth in nestlings. In Objective 2, these data will be used to test whether the environmental conditions of prey meaningfully impact their nutrient content. Although some studies investigate how nutrients change in response to temperature or diet shifts, very few examine these in combination, even though climate change is predicted to simultaneously affect both. Experiments in Objective 2 manipulating diet and rearing temperature will advance our understanding of how multiple environmental changes interact to determine nutritional value. Finally in Objective 3, researchers will examine bluebird nutritional preferences using field-based choice assays with nutritionally altered insect prey. The experiments in this project will advance basic science of nutritional ecology by examining hypotheses from the nutritional geometric framework and life history theory, the outcomes of which will inform conservation applications.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.

卡路里通常被视为营养的主要单位，但越来越多的证据表明，食物的特定营养成分可能是野生动物觅食行为的更重要驱动因素，因为营养成分随环境条件而变化，气候变化可能会影响野生动物的觅食行为。对于捕食者来说，这意味着气候变化可能会改变猎物的营养，从而改变它们选择的猎物。然而，如果不了解营养物质如何随环境条件变化而变化的基本知识，就很难做到这一点。预测捕食者的行为。是许多生态系统中常见的捕食者，捕食各种昆虫，可以轻松捕获和观察以进行行为研究。该项目将 1) 评估猎物中的常量营养素（蛋白质、碳水化合物、脂质），并确定可最大限度促进雏鸟生长的常量营养素的特定比例。 ，2）检查在实验控制的环境条件下饲养时猎物的营养价值如何变化，以及3）检查鸟类对猎物的营养偏好是否发生变化，因为昆虫被鸟类以外的许多动物吃掉，所以这项工作将具有保护意义。为了研究团队将包括就读相关生物学课程的本科生和带薪本科生助理，学生将开发与更广泛的主题相关的独立项目，并前往全国会议展示他们的工作。研究人员将结合操作性实验室实验和现有的 100 个东部蓝鸲巢箱网络，研究环境条件如何影响猎物的营养成分，以及这些因素是否会影响猎物的营养成分。变化会影响捕食者的偏好。这项工作将测试营养几何框架的使用：一种评估营养的工具，利用营养物质的比例来模拟食物如何组合以达到最大化有机体性能的多维营养目标。该框架可用于模拟饮食如何随着不同食物的变化而变化。通过测量目标 1 中猎物常量营养素对雏鸟发育的影响，研究人员将确定最大化雏鸟生长的多维营养目标，这些数据将用于测试猎物的环境条件是否良好。有意义地影响他们的营养尽管一些研究调查了营养物质如何随温度或饮食变化而变化，但很少有人将这些结合起来研究，尽管预计气候变化会同时影响这两者，但控制饮食和饲养温度的实验将增进我们对如何变化的理解。最后，在目标 3 中，研究人员将使用基于营养改变的昆虫猎物的实地分析选择来研究蓝知更鸟的营养偏好。营养几何框架和生活史理论，其结果将为保护申请提供信息。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。