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Translating nutritional ecology from the laboratory to the field: milestones in linking plant chemistry to population regulation in mammalian browsers

De Gabriel, Jane; Moore, Ben D.; Felton, Annika; Ganzhorn, Jorg U.; Stolter, Caroline; Wallis, Ian; Johnson, Christopher N.; Foley, William

Description

A central goal of nutritional ecology is to understand how variation in food quality limits the persistence of wild animal populations. Habitat suitability for browsing mammals is strongly affected by concentrations of nutrients and plant secondary metabolites (PSMs), but our understanding of this is based mostly on short-term experiments of diet selection involving captive animals. In the wild, browsers forage in biologically, chemically and spatially-complex environments, and foraging...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorDe Gabriel, Jane
dc.contributor.authorMoore, Ben D.
dc.contributor.authorFelton, Annika
dc.contributor.authorGanzhorn, Jorg U.
dc.contributor.authorStolter, Caroline
dc.contributor.authorWallis, Ian
dc.contributor.authorJohnson, Christopher N.
dc.contributor.authorFoley, William
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-10T23:18:50Z
dc.identifier.issn0030-1299
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/65801
dc.description.abstractA central goal of nutritional ecology is to understand how variation in food quality limits the persistence of wild animal populations. Habitat suitability for browsing mammals is strongly affected by concentrations of nutrients and plant secondary metabolites (PSMs), but our understanding of this is based mostly on short-term experiments of diet selection involving captive animals. In the wild, browsers forage in biologically, chemically and spatially-complex environments, and foraging decisions in response to varying food quality will be correspondingly complicated. We have identified four steps that must be achieved in order to translate our understanding from laboratory experiments to populations of mammalian browsers: 1) knowing what foods and how much of these wild browsers eat, as well as what they avoid eating; 2) knowing the relevant aspects of plant nutritional and defensive chemistry to measure in a given system and how to measure them; 3) understanding the spatial distribution of nutrients and PSMs in plant communities, the costs they impose on foraging and the effects on animals' distributions; and 4) having appropriate statistical tools to analyse the data. We discuss prospects for each of these prerequisites for extending laboratory studies of nutritional quality, and review recent developments that may offer solutions for field studies. We also provide a synthesis of how to use this nutritional knowledge to link food quality to population regulation in wild mammals and describe examples that have successfully achieved this aim.
dc.publisherMunksgaard International Publishers
dc.sourceOikos
dc.titleTranslating nutritional ecology from the laboratory to the field: milestones in linking plant chemistry to population regulation in mammalian browsers
dc.typeJournal article
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.citationvolume123
dc.date.issued2014
local.identifier.absfor060208 - Terrestrial Ecology
local.identifier.ariespublicationu9511635xPUB1162
local.type.statusPublished Version
local.contributor.affiliationDe Gabriel, Jane, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, ANU
local.contributor.affiliationMoore, Ben D., University of Western Sydney
local.contributor.affiliationFelton, Annika, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
local.contributor.affiliationGanzhorn, Jorg U., University of Hamburg
local.contributor.affiliationStolter, Caroline, University of Hamburg
local.contributor.affiliationWallis, Ian, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, ANU
local.contributor.affiliationJohnson, Christopher N., University of Tasmania
local.contributor.affiliationFoley, William, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, ANU
local.description.embargo2037-12-31
local.bibliographicCitation.issue3
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage298
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage308
local.identifier.doi10.1111/j.1600-0706.2013.00727.x
local.identifier.absseo960806 - Forest and Woodlands Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity
dc.date.updated2015-12-10T10:09:33Z
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-84894313841
local.identifier.thomsonID000336391100001
CollectionsANU Research Publications

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