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opencc-by-4.0Oct 2019View details →

Effect of recovery period of mixture pasture on cattle behaviour, pasture biomass production, and pasture nutritional value

This document provides the brief description of the statistical analysis for the research article entitled “Effect of recovery period of mixture pasture on cattle behaviour, pasture biomass production, and pasture nutritional value” published at Animal: An International Journal of Animal Bioscience. The study was designed to evaluate three different recovery periods of mixed grasses on the grazing behaviour of heifers, as well as herbage selectivity, herbage yield and nutritional value, in vitro degradability, and CH4 production. The three pasture recovery periods (RP) of 24, 35 and 46 days were evaluated in six blocks using a randomized block design. At each predetermined recovery period, samples of the pasture were taken before the animals were allowed to graze using the square method. Right after collecting the pasture samples, a group, out of three, of six heifers accessed the pasture during four consecutive hours for grazing simulation and behavioural observations. The three groups of heifers were scheduled to be used in accordance with a systematic distribution and the pre-determined RP. The groups went through all the blocks according to the RP and the 3x3 double Latin Square design. A sample scan from each animal was taken every 10 min for behavioural observations and grazing simulations was taken through the hand-plucking technique. The bite rate of each animal was also measured five times each hour for 30 seconds each, and then one value per group was calculated. Statistical analyses were performed in R Core Team (2018). Additional information is provided in the paper “Effect of recovery period of mixture pasture on cattle behaviour, pasture biomass production, and pasture nutritional value”.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2020View details →

DMP Project Nutrition

A machine-actionable Data Management Plan of the project Nutrition and a Data Management Plan created using the Horizon2020 template. These plans were created for educational purposes within the 'Data Stewardship' lecture at the University of Technology, Vienna.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2020View details →

Project Nutrition

The csv files were created as an output of a university project. They contain descriptive statistics about 36 food categories, a correlation matrix showing correlation between various attributes of food categories, a result of K-means clustering in which a cluster number was assigned to each food item, and lastly mean values of magnesium and calcium content of each food category. The original input data used was the USDA Nutrient Dataset by U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019 https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/index.html

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2016View details →

Figure 1 in Does nutritional status constrain adoption of more costly and less risky foraging behaviour in an Amazonian shelter-building spider?

Figure 1. Hingstepeira folisecens (Hingston 1932) (Araneae: Araneidae) of Central Amazonia, Brazil. (a) Orb web of H. folisecens with the shelter formed by dry curled leaf (scale: 1 cm). (b) A sub-adult female of H. folisecens (scale: 1 mm).

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2020View details →

Appendicularian development and nutrition

This video footage shows the details of the filter feeding behavior of the appendicularian O. dioica. The concentration of particles in the house, the transport to the mouth, the retention by the pharyngeal filter of food particles and their path in the digestive tract until the expulsion of the fecal pellets are detailed. Fertilization and embryogenesis are also briefly showed. During a long-term collaboration in the eighties with M. Kage from the Institut für Wissenschaftliche Fotografie, Germany, we recorded hours of footage on feeding behavior and fecundation in O. dioica cultivated at the Observatoire Océanologique of Villefranche sur mer, France. With R. Fenaux we have summarized the feeding behavior and development of the appendicularian O. dioica in a video sequence of 11 min. We thank M. Kage for his substantial contribution to this work, F. Abbaz for the videotapes remastering and P. Chang for the narration.

opencc-zeroDec 2020View details →

Public-private partnerships in nutrition specific interventions in Eastern Mediterranean Region countries

Introduction: Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in public health have been widely promoted as an effective tool for accelerating progress toward achieving the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 2 "to eliminate hunger." At the global level, partnership with the private sector was found to be very instrumental in improving the nutritional status of poor and food-insecure people, promoting healthy lifestyle, and developing initiatives to prevent childhood obesity. In countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), PPPs in nutrition actions has been mainly driven by UN and International development agencies to support low and middle -income countries in achieving better health outcomes. Despite the increased prominence of engaging the private sector in public health actions in countries of the EMR, the evidence on the role of the private sector in the design/implementation of these actions is still not documented. Objectives: The objective of this study is to assess the role and contribution of the private sector in the design/ implementation of nutrition- specific interventions addressing the double burden of malnutrition in countries from the EMR and identifying the key factors for successful PPP implementation. Methods: The study design was descriptive using secondary data obtained from digital internet sources, including WHO databases, grey literature, and websites of UN and International development agencies. Results: The desk review revealed that the private sector has played a sizable role in the implementation of food fortification initiatives and in the implementation of nutritional policies promoting healthy diets. The experience of the Region shows the significant impact of government commitment, and the availability of national policies and systems for monitoring and enforcement on the sustainability and effectiveness of PPPs specific nutrition interventions. Conclusion: The study emphasizes the key actions recommended for the governments to enhance the application of PPPs as a tool to accelerate the EMR countries' progress toward achieving the nutrition targets under SDG 2 by 2030.

opencc-zeroDec 2020View details →

Feeding preferences and nutritional niche of wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) in Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal.

We sought to further the understanding of how an animal's foraging ecology is influenced by their feeding preferences and nutritional composition of forage items. Our research identified these aspects of wild water buffalo's (Bubalus arnee) foraging ecology in Nepal. First, we sought to describe the foraging preferences of wild water buffalo in terms of the relative abundance of functional forage groups (i.e., forbs, graminoids, and browse) in their diet. We observed signs of wild water buffalo foraging on 54 plant species. We found wild water buffalo consume graminoids and forbs 2-3 times more frequently than browse items. Then, we investigated the composition of nutrients (i.e., carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids) in wild water buffalo diets to develop an estimate of their realized nutrient niche. Of the 54 plant species foraged, we analyzed the nutritional composition of the 16 most frequently foraged species. We found the realized nutrient niche of wild water buffalo is dominated by carbohydrates, but there was a positive correlation between the relative frequency of foraged items and protein content. Our study contributes important information on the feeding preference and nutritional content of the endangered wild water buffalo. Our results can be used to inform conservation and management strategies of this species in wild. Selection of potential translocation sites should include key species that are higher in protein content and frequently forages by wild water buffalo (e.g., Typha elephantina) to help mitigate human-wildlife conflicts. Further, we provide valuable insight into the mechanisms influencing the foraging ecology of wild herbivores.

opencc-zeroDec 2012View details →

Data from: Epistasis and maternal effects in experimental adaptation to chronic nutritional stress in Drosophila

Based on ecological and metabolic arguments some authors predict that adaptation to novel, harsh environments should involve alleles showing negative (diminishing return) epistasis and/or that it should be mediated in part by evolution of maternal effects. While the first prediction has been supported in microbes, there has been little experimental support for either prediction in multicellular eukaryotes. Here we use a line-cross design to study the genetic architecture of adaptation to chronic larval malnutrition in a population of Drosophila melanogaster which evolved on an extremely nutrient-poor larval food for 84 generations. We assayed three fitness-related traits (developmental rate, adult female weight and egg-to-adult viability) under the malnutrition conditions in 14 crosses between this selected population and a non-adapted control population originally derived from the same base population. All traits showed a pattern of negative epistasis between alleles improving performance under malnutrition. Furthermore, evolutionary changes in maternal traits accounted for half of the 68 % increase in viability and for the whole of 8 % reduction in adult female body weight in the selected population (relative to unselected controls). These results thus support both of the above predictions and point to the importance of non-additive effects in adaptive microevolution.

opencc-zeroDec 2012View details →

Data from: Infanticide as a male reproductive strategy has a nutritive risk effect in brown bears

Behavioral strategies to reduce predation can incur costs (i.e. risk effects). A common strategy to avoid predation is spatiotemporal avoidance of predators, in which prey typically trade optimal resources for safety. Analogous with predator-prey theory, risk effects should also arise in species with sexually selected infanticide (SSI), in which females with dependent offspring avoid infanticidal males. In brown bears (Ursus arctos), SSI is common and explains spatiotemporal segregation among reproductive classes. Here, we show that females with cubs-of-the-year had lower quality diets than conspecifics during the SSI high-risk period, the mating season. After the mating season, their diets were of similar quality to diets of their conspecifics. Our results suggest a nutritive risk effect of SSI, in which females with cubs-of-the-year alter their resource selection and trade optimal resources for offspring safety. We suggest that risk effects can be widespread among species with SSI, and that these risk effects can add to the female costs of reproduction.

Data from: Manipulation of parental nutritional condition reveals competition among family members

Parental care is thought to be costly, as it consumes time and energy. Such costs might be reduced in animal parents that raise their young on valuable food sources such as dung or carcasses, as parents are able to invest in self-maintenance by feeding from the same resource. However, this might lower the nutritional value for other family members and, as a consequence, food competition might arise. To promote our understanding of the outcome of such competition, we manipulated the necessity of parents to feed from the resource. Using a full factorial design, we paired food-deprived or well-fed males with food-deprived or well-fed females of burying beetles, which are known to raise their young on vertebrate cadavers. We found that food-deprived parents consumed more of the carrion than those that were well-fed and this had a negative impact on other family members. However, the outcome of the competition depended on the sex of the parents, with females suffering when males fed more and offspring suffering when females fed more. Thus, family life involves selfish elements, as both parents remove resources for the purpose of self-maintenance. However, females show altruistic aspects, as they appear to restrict their food consumption for the benefit of their offspring when paired with a food-deprived male. Interestingly, males extend their stay with the brood when having faced food scarcity prior to reproduction, presumably to replenish their energy reserves. Our study therefore reveals that breeding on shared resources can promote family living, but also results in competition.

Data from: Insulin signaling's role in mediating tissue-specific nutritional plasticity and robustness in the horn-polyphenic beetle Onthophagus taurus

Organisms cope with nutritional variation via developmental plasticity, adjusting trait size to nutrient availability for some traits while enabling others to develop in a nutritionally robust manner. Yet, the developmental mechanisms that regulate organ-specific growth across nutritional gradients remain poorly understood. We assessed the functions of members of the insulin/insulin-like signaling pathway (IIS) in the regulation of nutrition sensitivity and robustness in males of the horn-polyphenic beetle Onthophagus taurus, as well as potential regulatory interactions between IIS and two other growth-regulating pathways: Doublesex and Hedgehog signaling. Using RNA interference (RNAi) we experimentally knocked down both insulin receptors (InR1, InR2) and Foxo, a growth inhibitor. We then performed morphometric measurements on horns, a highly nutrition-sensitive trait, and genitalia, a largely nutrition-insensitive trait. Finally, we used qRT-PCR to assess expression levels of Doublesex and the Hedgehog-signaling gene smoothened following IIS-RNAi. Our results suggest that nutrition responsiveness of both traits is regulated by different IIS components, which transduce nutritional conditions to both Doublesex and Hedgehog pathways, albeit via different IIS pathway members. Combined with previous studies our findings suggest that separate origins of trait exaggeration among insect lineages were enabled through the independent cooption of IIS, yet via reliance on different components therein.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

Data from: Temperature dependence of predation stress and the nutritional ecology of a generalist herbivore

Prey at risk of predation may experience stress and respond physiologically by altering their metabolic rates. Theory predicts that such physiological changes should alter prey nutrient demands from N-rich to C-rich macronutrients and shift the balance between maintenance and growth/reproduction. Theory further suggests that for ectotherms, temperature stands to exacerbate this stress. Yet, the interactive effects of predation stress and temperature stress on diet, metabolism, and survival of ectotherms are not well known. This knowledge gap was addressed with a laboratory study in which wild juvenile grasshoppers were collected, assigned to one of three groups, and raised at three different temperatures. All grasshoppers had access to equal quantities of two diets composed of opposite carbohydrate:protein ratios. Half of the individuals in each temperature group were exposed to predation risk cues from spider predators, while the other half were kept in risk free conditions. Grasshoppers consumed more carbohydrates when exposed to predation risk, but consumption favored greater protein intake as temperature increased. Moreover, the difference in carbohydrate intake between risk cue and risk free treatments diminished as temperature increased. Furthermore, variability between individual consumption patterns both within and between treatments decreased markedly as temperature increased, suggesting that higher temperatures promote more consistent individual consumption behaviors. Grasshoppers grew faster and larger as temperature increased, which translated into higher survival rates at higher temperatures. Warmer grasshoppers also did not alter their metabolic rates in response to predation risk cues, in contrast to colder grasshoppers. Digestive efficiency increased with temperature as well, further indicating that lower temperatures were much more stressful than higher temperatures for grasshoppers. The study shows that physiological responses of ectothermic herbivores to predation stress are highly plastic and temperature dependent, with higher temperatures promoting increased protein intake, growth, development, survival, and digestive efficiency relative to colder temperatures. These findings help to reconcile why dietary responses (proportion of protein vs. carbohydrate intake) to predation stress may vary among different prey taxa studied previously.

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Inbreeding depression across a nutritional stress continuum

Many natural populations experience inbreeding and genetic drift as a consequence of nonrandom mating or low population size. Furthermore, they face environmental challenges that may interact synergistically with deleterious consequences of increased homozygosity and further decrease fitness. Most studies on inbreeding–environment (I-E) interactions use one or two stress levels, whereby the resolution of the possible stress and inbreeding depression interaction is low. Here we produced Drosophila melanogaster replicate populations, maintained at three different population sizes (10, 50 and a control size of 500) for 25 generations. A nutritional stress gradient was imposed on the replicate populations by exposing them to 11 different concentrations of yeast in the developmental medium. We assessed the consequences of nutritional stress by scoring egg-to-adult viability and body mass of emerged flies. We found: (1) unequivocal evidence for I-E interactions in egg-to-adult viability and to a lesser extent in dry body mass, with inbreeding depression being more severe under higher levels of nutritional stress; (2) a steeper increase in inbreeding depression for replicate populations of size 10 with increasing nutritional stress than for replicate populations of size 50; (3) a nonlinear norm of reaction between inbreeding depression and nutritional stress; and (4) a faster increase in number of lethal equivalents in replicate populations of size 10 compared with replicate populations of size 50 with increasing nutritional stress levels. Our data provide novel and strong evidence that deleterious fitness consequences of I-E interactions are more pronounced at higher nutritional stress and at higher inbreeding levels.

opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

Fruit syndromes in Viburnum: correlated evolution of color, nutritional content, and morphology in bird-dispersed fleshy fruits

Premise A key question in plant dispersal via animal vectors is where and why fruit colors vary between species and how color relates to other fruit traits. To better understand the factors shaping the evolution of fruit color diversity, we tested for the existence of syndromes of traits (color, morphology, and nutrition) in the fruits of Viburnum. We placed these results in a larger phylogenetic context and reconstructed ancestral states to assess how Viburnum fruit traits have evolved across the clade. Results We find that blue Viburnum fruits are not very juicy, have high lipid content, and large, round endocarps surrounded by a small quantity of pulp. Red fruits display the opposite suite of traits: they are very juicy with low lipid content and smaller, flatter endocarps. The ancestral Viburnum fruit may have gone through a sequence of color changes before maturation (green to yellow to red to black), though our reconstructions are equivocal. In one major clade of Viburnum (Nectarotinus), fruits mature synchronously with reduced intermediate color stages. Most transitions between fruit colors occurred in this synchronously fruiting clade. Conclusions It is widely accepted that fruit trait diversity has primarily been driven by the differing perceptual abilities of bird versus mammal frugivores. Yet within a clade of largely bird-dispersed fruits, we find clear correlations between color, morphology, and nutrition. These correlations are likely driven by a shift from sequential to synchronous development, followed by diversification in color, nutrition, and morphology. A deeper understanding of fruit evolution within clades will elucidate the degree to which such syndromes structure extant fruit diversity.

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →

Data from: Early life nutritional quality effects on adult memory retention in a parasitic wasp

Nutritional quality during early life can affect learning ability and memory retention of animals. Here we studied the effect of resource quality gained during larval development on the learning ability and memory retention of 2 sympatric strains of similar genetic background of the parasitoid Trichogramma brassicae: one uninfected and one infected by Wolbachia. Wolbachia is a common arthropod parasite/mutualistic symbiont with a range of known effects on host fitness. Here we studied, for the first time, the interaction between resource quality and Wolbachia infection on memory retention and resource acquisition. Memory retention of uninfected wasps was significantly longer when reared on high quality hosts when compared to low quality hosts. Furthermore, uninfected wasps emerging from high quality hosts showed higher values of protein and triglyceride than those emerging from low quality hosts. In contrast, the memory retention for infected wasps was the same irrespective of host quality, although retention was significantly lower than uninfected wasps. No significant effect of host quality on capital resource amount of infected wasps was observed, and infected wasps displayed a lower amount of protein and triglyceride than uninfected wasps when reared on high quality hosts. This study suggests that the nutritional quality of the embryonic period can affect memory retention of adult wasps not infected by Wolbachia. However, by manipulating the host's obtained capital resource amount, Wolbachia could enable exploitation of the maximum available resources from a range of hosts to acquire suitable performance in complex environments.

opencc-zeroDec 2011View details →

Data from: Dynamic Wolbachia prevalence in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants: potential for a nutritional symbiosis

Wolbachia are renowned as reproductive parasites, but their phenotypic effects in eusocial insects are not well understood. We used a combination of qrt-PCR, fluorescence in situ hybridisation, and laser scanning confocal microscopy to evaluate the dynamics of Wolbachia infections in the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex octospinosus across developmental stages of sterile workers. We confirm that workers are infected with one or two widespread wsp genotypes of Wolbachia, show that colony prevalences are always 100%, and characterize two rare recombinant genotypes. One dominant genotype is always present and most abundant while another only proliferates in adult workers of some colonies and is barely detectable in larvae and pupae. An explanation may be that Wolbachia genotypes compete for host resources in immature stages while adult tissues provide substantially more niche space. Tissue-specific prevalences of the two genotypes differ, with the rarer genotype being overrepresented in the adult foregut and thorax muscles. Both genotypes occur extra-cellularly in the foregut, suggesting an unknown mutualistic function in worker ant nutrition. Both genotypes are also abundant in the faecal fluid of the ants, suggesting that they may have extended functional phenotypes in the fungus garden that the ants manure with their own faeces.

Data from: Female nutritional condition affects ovarian fluid quality in guppies

Male and female gametes are often embedded in fluids that are produced by gonads and other reproductive tissues. Female reproductive fluids, usually called ovarian fluids (OF), which often constitute a relevant volumetric component of the egg mass, are rich in ions, sugars, and proteins, and are involved in several functions, from protecting gametes to facilitating fertilization, and often act as mediators of postmating sexual selection. Despite their applied and evolutionary importance, we know virtually nothing about the costs of female reproductive fluid production. We investigated the effect of nutritional condition on OF quality by experimentally manipulating the diet of two groups of female guppies (Poecilia reticulata) which were maintained for 20 days either at a restricted diet or had ad-libitum access to food. In this species, OF enhances sperm swimming longevity and velocity (a predictor of sperm competition success) and mediates postcopulatory inbreeding avoidance. We found that sperm velocity was significantly lower in the OF of diet-restricted females, indicating that OF quality is dependent on female nutritional condition. Our results demonstrate that OF represents non-trivial component of female reproductive investment and provide a tool to investigate which OF constituents are involved in modulating OF-sperm interactions and fertilization.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

Data from: Transgenerational effects of nutrition are different for sons and daughters

Food shortage is an important selective factor shaping animal life-history trajectories. Yet, despite its role, many aspects of the interaction between parental and offspring food environments remain unclear. In this study, we measured developmental plasticity in response to food availability over two generations and tested the relative contribution of paternal and maternal food availability to the performance of offspring reared under matched and mismatched food environments. We applied a cross-generational split-brood design using the springtail Orchesella cincta, which is found in the litter layer of temperate forests. The results show adverse effects of food limitation on several life-history traits and reproductive performance of both parental sexes. Food conditions of both parents contributed to the offspring phenotypic variation, providing evidence for transgenerational effects of diet. Parental diet influenced sons' age at maturity and daughters' weight at maturity. Specifically, being born to food-restricted parents allowed offspring to alleviate the adverse effects of food limitation, without reducing their performance under well-fed conditions. Thus, parents raised on a poor diet primed their offspring for a more efficient resource use. However, a mismatch between maternal and offspring food environments generated sex-specific adverse effects: female offspring born to well-fed mothers showed a decreased flexibility to deal with low-food conditions. Notably, these maternal effects of food availability were not observed in the sons. Finally, we found that the relationship between age and size at maturity differed between males and females and showed that offspring life-history strategies in O. cincta are primed differently by the parents.

Data from: Quantifying nutritional trade-offs across multidimensional performance landscapes

Animals make feeding decisions to simultaneously maximise fitness traits that often require different nutrients. Recent quantitative methods have been developed to characterise these nutritional trade-offs from performance landscapes on which traits are mapped on a nutrient space defined by two nutrients. This limitation constrains the broad applications of previous methods to more complex data, and a generalised framework is needed. Here, we build upon previous methods and introduce a generalised vector-based approach – the Vector of Position approach – to study nutritional trade-offs in complex multi-dimensional spaces. The Vector of Position Approach allows the estimate of performance variations across entire landscapes (peaks and valleys), and compare these variations between animals. Using landmark published datasets on lifespan and reproduction landscapes, we illustrate how our approach gives accurate quantifications of nutritional trade-offs in two- and three-dimensional spaces, and can bring new insights into the underlying nutritional differences in trait expression between species. The Vector of Position Approach provides a generalised framework for investigating nutritional differences in life-history traits expression within and between species, an essential step for the development of comparative research on the evolution of animal nutritional strategies.