BIOL3045 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Giant Panda, Embryonic Diapause, Nutrient
3 Jul 2018
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Department
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Professor
Animal Ecological Physiology BIOL3045 460381099
Lecture 24: Nutritional ecology.
Proportions based nutritional geometry
Benefits
• Don’t need long term measures of amounts eaten.
• Can use data from food composition, fecal analysis, gut contents analysis or population
measures of intake. These are easier to obtain.
• Able to model 3 components in a two dimensional plot.
Comparing species natural diets in the wild
• Particularly primates.
Testing nutritional regulation in the wild
• Two populations of gorillas. Different environments mean that they have access to different
foods. However, the two populations eat different combinations of food to reach the same
nutrient target. Therefore, they are actively eating different combinations.
Mysteries of the giant panda
• Migrate from higher altitude areas in summer to inland areas for winter. In late winter (mating
time) the pandas feed on leaves. In spring/summer (during embryonic diapause and
implantation) the pandas migrate and feed on shoots. In autumn (gestation birth and lactation)
the pandas migrate back to feed on leaves. Nutritional geometry showed: Leaves were much
higher in calcium while shoots where much higher in phosphorus and nitrogen. This is because
they require high calcium during birth and lactation (leaves) and require high protein during
summer to get ready for reproduction (shoots). Thus, in summer they live off the calcium in their
bones, balancing out the diet over the year to satisfy calcium intake over winter.
• They are related to extreme carnivores but only eat plants? However, the pandas still have a gut
of a carnivore and carnivore microbiota. Other reports are false, as bamboo actually is 70%.
Thus, they are utilising their carnivorous gut to break down the carnivorous macronutrient diet.
Domestication
• All breeds and sizes of dogs select the same P:C diet, but eat more the bigger they are. Wild wolf
diet has higher P%. Thus, dogs select lower P% than ancestral, due to hunter gather scrap
adaptation. Commercial dog foods match that of the hunter gather diets.
• Cats are less affected by domestication however commercial food is also matched to that of
hunter gather diets.
Document Summary
Benefits: do(cid:374)"t (cid:374)eed lo(cid:374)g ter(cid:373) (cid:373)easures of a(cid:373)ou(cid:374)ts eate(cid:374), can use data from food composition, fecal analysis, gut contents analysis or population measures of intake. These are easier to obtain: able to model 3 components in a two dimensional plot. Comparing species natural diets in the wild: particularly primates. Testing nutritional regulation in the wild: two populations of gorillas. Different environments mean that they have access to different foods. However, the two populations eat different combinations of food to reach the same nutrient target. Mysteries of the giant panda: migrate from higher altitude areas in summer to inland areas for winter. In late winter (mating time) the pandas feed on leaves. In spring/summer (during embryonic diapause and implantation) the pandas migrate and feed on shoots. In autumn (gestation birth and lactation) the pandas migrate back to feed on leaves. Nutritional geometry showed: leaves were much higher in calcium while shoots where much higher in phosphorus and nitrogen.
