Responses to variation in nutritional environments

Cuny Hunter College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Adequate nutrition is critical for growth, reproduction, immune function, and prevention of disease. However, variation in environments can pose challenges to securing adequate nutrition. This project examines how individuals shift consumption practices across variable environments. Strategies that individuals may employ range from eating diverse foods with relatively similar nutritional profiles, targeting specific foods to achieve similar nutrient intakes, tolerating diets with disparate nutrient ratios, and relying on bacterial communities in the gut to aid in the digestion of food. To understand how these nutritional strategies complement each other, the research team investigates feeding behavior, diet nutritional compositions and gut bacteria in an organism that experiences disparate nutritional environments. The project offers training opportunities for undergraduate students, including those from under-represented groups in STEM, builds research capacity at a minority-serving institution, disseminates results broadly to academic and non-academic audiences, and strengthens multi-institution collaborations across diverse fields of study. This research aims to contribute to understanding how living in diverse ecological environments affects nutrient intake and balance. To understand this issue, the research team investigates the ways in which wild redtail monkeys make nutritional decisions in three different forests where plant composition varies widely. Research questions address how ecological circumstances affect diet and nutrition, the degree of flexibility in diet and in nutrient balance, and how variation in diet and nutrition correlate with the composition of the microbiome. The team employs a variety of methods to address these research questions, including behavioral observations, dietary analysis, and bioinformatic microbiome analysis. In doing so, they assist in deciphering the nutritional mechanisms behind dietary generalism to shed light on how dietary generalists succeed across time and space. 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.