营养生态学是现代生态学领域研究动物食物数量和质量、营养适应以及营养对种群特征作用规律的分支学科。目前从营养生态学研究灵长类食性需求主要分为五种假说,1)能量最大化假说;2)氮(蛋白质)最大化假说;3)植物次级代谢产物调节假说;4)膳食纤维调节假说;5)食物营养均衡假说。本文从研究方法和研究内容分别介绍了这些假说在灵长类中的研究进展,并综述了我国的灵长类各物种在营养生态学领域开展研究的进展。
Nutritional ecology is a field that studies the quantity and quality of food taken in by animals and involves adaptative and functional mechanisms used by those animal populations.There are five main considerations in this field: 1) energy maximization;2) nitrogen(protein) maximization;3) regulation of plant secondary metabolites or PSMs;4) regulation of dietary fiber;and 5) nutrient balancing.This paper introduces these five considerations in a review of studies by Chinese primatologists.