Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T12:41:23.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The evolution of the control of food intake

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2007

A. W. Illius ,
B. J. Tolkamp  and
J. Yearsley
A. W. Illius*
Affiliation:
Institute of Cell, Animal and Population Biology, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Rd, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK
B. J. Tolkamp
Affiliation:
Animal Nutrition and Health Department, Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK
J. Yearsley
Affiliation:
Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK
*
*Corresponding author: Professor A. W. Illius, fax +44 131 650 5446, email [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The ultimate goal of an organism is to maximise its inclusive fitness, and an important sub-goal must be the optimisation of the lifetime pattern of food intake, in order to meet the nutrient demands of survival, growth and reproduction. The conventional assumption that fitness is maximised by maximising daily food intake, subject to physical and physiological constraints, has been challenged recently. Instead, it can be argued that fitness is maximised by balancing benefits and costs over the organism's lifetime. The fitness benefits of food intake are a function of its contribution to survival, growth (including necessary body reserves) and reproduction. Against these benefits must be set costs. These costs include not only extrinsic foraging costs and risks, such as those due to predation, but also intrinsic costs associated with food intake, such as obesity and oxidative metabolism that may reduce vitality and lifespan. We argue that the aggregate of benefits and costs form the fitness function of food intake and present examples of such an approach to predicting optimal food intake.

Keywords

Food intakeLinear programmingCost-benefitFitness
Type
Symposium on ‘Perspectives in the study of food intake’
Information
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , November 2002 , pp. 465 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 2002

References

Allen, MS (1996) Physical constraints on voluntary intake of forages by ruminants. Journal of Animal Science 74, 3063–3075.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beckman, KB & Ames, BN (1998) The free radical theory of aging matures. Physiological Reviews 78, 547–581.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Belovsky, GE (1978) Diet optimization in a generalist herbivore: the moose. Theoretical Population Biology 14, 105–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belovsky, GE (1994) How good must models and data be in ecology? Oecologia 100, 475–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Belovsky, GE, Fryxell, J & Schmitz, OJ (1999) Natural selection and herbivore nutrition: optimal foraging theory and what it tells us about the structure of ecological communities. In Vth International Symposium on the Nutrition of Herbivores, pp. 1–70 [Jung, H-JG and Fahey Jr, GC, editors]. Savoy, IL: American Society of Animal Science.Google Scholar
Belovsky, GE & Schmitz, OJ (1993) Owen-Smith's evaluation of herbivore foraging models: what is constraining? Evoutionary Ecology 7, 525–529.Google Scholar
Biesmeijer, JC & Toth, E (1998) Individual foraging, activity level and longevity in the stingless bee Melipona beecheii in Costa Rica (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponinae) Insectes Sociaux 45, 427–443.Google Scholar
Blaxter, KL, Fowler, VR & Gill, JC (1982) A study of the growth of sheep to maturity. Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge 98, 405–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dukas, R (2001) Effects of perceived danger on flower choice by bees. Ecology Letters 4, 327–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, AJ, Mayes, RW, Young, SA, Lamb, CS & MacEachern, P (2001) Choice of foraging patches by hill sheep given different opportunities to seek shelter and food. Animal Science 73, 563–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmans, GC (1997) A method to predict the food intake of domestic animals from birth to maturity as a function of time. Journal of Theoretical Biology 186, 189–199.Google Scholar
Emmans, GC & Kyriazakis, I (2000) Issues arising from genetic selection for growth and body composition characteristics in poultry and pigs. In The Challenge of Genetic Change in Animal Production. Occasional Publication of the British Society of Animal Science no.27, pp. 39–53. Edinburgh: British Society of Animal Science.Google Scholar
Finkel, T & Holbrook, NJ (2000) Oxidants, oxidative stress and the biology of ageing. Nature 408, 239–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friedman, MI (1998) Fuel partitioning and food intake. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 67, 513S-518S.Google ScholarPubMed
Ghalambor, CK & Martin, TE (2001) Fecundity-survival trade-offs and parental risk taking in birds. Science 292, 494–497.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilliam, JF & Fraser, DF (1987) Habitat selection under predation hazard: test of a model with foraging minnows. Ecology 68, 1856–1862.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gross, JE, Alkon, PU & Demment, MW (1996) Nutritional ecology of dimorphic herbivores: Digestion and passage rates in Nubian ibex. Oecologia 107, 170–178.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hocking, PM & McCormack, HA (1995) Differential sensitivity of ovarian follicles to gonadotrophin stimulation in broiler and layer lines of domestic fowl. Journal of Reproduction and Fertility 105, 49–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Houston, AI & McNamara, JM (1999) Models of Adaptive Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Houston, AIJ, McNamara, M & Hutchinson, JMC (1993) General results concerning the trade-off between gaining energy and avoiding predation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 341, 375–397.Google Scholar
Hutchings, MR, Kyriazakis, I, Gordon, IJ & Jackson, F (1999) Trade-offs between nutrient intake and faecal avoidance in herbivore foraging decisions: the effect of animal parasitic status, level of feeding motivation and sward nitrogen content. Journal of Animal Ecology 68, 310–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illius, AW & Gordon, IJ (1999) Physiological ecology of mammalian herbivory. In Vth International Symposium on the Nutrition of Herbivores, pp. 71–96 [Jung, H-JG and Fahey Jr, GC, editors]. Savoy, IL: American Society of Animal Science.Google Scholar
Illius, AW & Jessop, NS (1995) Modelling metabolic costs of allelochemical ingestion by foraging herbivores. Journal of Chemical Ecology 21, 693–719.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ketelaars, JJMH & Tolkamp, BJ (1996) Oxygen efficiency and the control of energy flow in animals and man. Journal of Animal Science 74, 3036–3051.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krebs, JR & Davies, NB (1987) An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Lambrechts, MM, Prieur, B, Caizergues, A & Dehorter, O & Galan, M-J & Perret, P (2000) Risk-taking restraints in a bird with reduced egg-hatching success. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 267, 333–338.Google Scholar
Lane, MA (2000) Nonhuman primate models in biogerontology. Experimental Gerontology 35, 533–541.Google ScholarPubMed
Lane, MA, Black, A, Handy, A, Tilmont, EM, Ingram, DK & Roth, GS (2001) Caloric restriction in primates. Healthy Aging for Functional Longevity 928, 287–295.Google ScholarPubMed
Lankford, TE Jr, Billerbeck, JM & Conover, DO (2001) Evolution of intrinsic growth and energy acquisition rates. II. Trade-offs with vulnerability to predation in Menidia menidia. Evolution 55, 1873–1881.Google ScholarPubMed
Lima, SL (1998) Stress and decision making under the risk of predation: Recent developments from behavioral, reproductive, and ecological perspectives. Advances in the Study of Behaviour 27, 215–290.Google Scholar
Lima, SL & Dill, LM (1990) Behavioural decisions made under the risk of predation: a review and prospectus. Canadian Journal of Zoology 68, 619–640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFarland, D (1989) Problems of Animal Behaviour. Harlow, Essex: Longman Scientific and Technical.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, RL & Montgomerie, RD (1990) Flight speeds of parent birds feeding nestlings: maximisation of foraging efficiency or food delivery rate? Canadian Journal of Zoology 68, 2269–2274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPeek, MA, Grace, M & Richardson, JML (2001) Physiological and behavioural responses to predators shape the growth/predation risk trade-off in damselflies. Ecology 82, 1535–1545.Google Scholar
Masoro, JE (2000) Caloric restriction and aging: an update. Experimental Gerontology 35, 299–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mela, DJ & Rogers, PJ (1998) Food, Eating and Obesity. The Psychobiological Basis of Appetite and Weight Control. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Mench, JA (1993) Problems associated with broiler breeder management. In Proceedings of the Fourth European Symposium on Poultry Welfare, pp. 195–207 [Savory, CJ and Hughes, BO, editors]. Potters Bar, Herts.: Universities Federation for Animal Welfare.Google Scholar
Miquel, J (2001) Nutrition and ageing. Public Health Nutrition 4, 1385–1388.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montgomerie, RD, Eadie, JM & Harder, LD (1984) What do foraging hummingbirds maximize? Oecologia 63, 357–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moskovitz, J, Yim, MB & Chock, PB (2002) Free radicals and disease. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 397, 354–359.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ogink, MWM (1993) Genetic size and growth in goats. PhD Thesis, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Orr, WC & Sohal, RS (1994) Extension of life-span by overexpression of superoxidedismutase and catalase in Drosophila melanogaster. Science 263, 1128–1130.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, N (1993) Evaluating optimal diet models for an African browsing ruminant, the kudu: how constraining are the assumed constraints? Evolutionary Ecolology 7 530–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen-Smith, N (1994) Foraging responses of kudus to seasonal changes in food resources: elasticity in constraints. Ecology 75 1050–1062.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, N (1996) Circularity in linear programming models of optimal diet. Oecologia 108, 259–261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Owen-Smith, N (1998) How high ambient temperature affects the daily activity and foraging time of a subtropical ungulate, the greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros). Journal of Zoology 246, 183–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitroff, W & Kothman, MK (1999) Regulation of intake and diet selection by herbivores. In Vth International Symposium on the Nutrition of Herbivores, pp. 366–422 [Jung, H-JG and Fahey Jr, GC, editors]. Savoy, IL: American Society of Animal Science.Google Scholar
Ramsey, JJ, Harper, ME & Weindruch, R (2000) Restriction of energy intake, energy expenditure, and aging. Free Radical Biology and Medicine 29, 946–968.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rasheed, SA & Harder, LD (1997) Foraging currencies for non-energetic resources: pollen collection by bumblebees. Animal Behaviour 54, 911–926.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reznick, D, Butler, MJ & Rodd, H (2001) Life-history evolution in guppies. VII. The comparative ecology of high and low predation environments. American Naturalist 157, 126–140.Google ScholarPubMed
Roth, GS, Ingram, DK, Black, A & Lane, MA (2000) Effects of reduced energy intake on the biology of aging: the primate model. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 54, S15-S20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmid-Hempel, P, Kacelnik, A & Houston, AI (1985) Honeybees maximise efficiency by not filling their crop. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 17, 61–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scrimgeour, GJ & Culp, JM (1994) Feeding while evading predators by a lotic mayfly: linking short-term foraging behaviours to long-term fitness consequences. Oecologia 100, 128–134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Searle, TW, Graham, NM & O'Callaghan, M (1972) Growth in sheep. I. The chemical composition of the body. Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge 79, 371–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skogland, T (1988) Tooth wear by food limitation and its life history consequences in wild reindeer. Oikos 51, 238–242.Google Scholar
Sohal, RS & Weindruch, R (1996) Oxidative stress, caloric restriction and aging. Science 237, 59–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, DW & Krebs, JR (1986) Foraging Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stoks, R & Johansson, F (2000) Trading off mortality risk against foraging effort in damselflies that differ in life cycle length. Oikos 91, 559–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stubbs, RJ (1998) Appetite, feeding behaviour and energy balance in human subjects. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 57, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stubbs, RJ & O'Reilly, LM (2000) Carbohydrate and fat metabolism, appetite and feeding behavior in humans. In Neural and Metabolic Control of Macronutrient Intake, pp. 165–188 [Berthoud, H-R and Seeley, RJ, editors]. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Tolkamp, BJ & Ketelaars, JJMH (1992) Toward a new theory of feed intake regulation in ruminants. 2. Costs and benefits of feed consumption: an optimization approach. Livestock Production Science 30, 297–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welham, CVJ & Ydenberg, RC (1993) Efficiency-maximising flight speeds in parent black terns. Ecology 74, 1893–1901.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weston, RH (1996) Some aspects of constraints to forage consumption by ruminants. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 47, 175–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witter, MS & Cuthill, IC (1993) The ecological costs of avian fat storage. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 340, 73–92.Google ScholarPubMed
Yearsley, JM, Hastings, IM, Gordon, IJ, Kyriazakis, I & Illius, AW (2002) A lifetime perspective on foraging and mortality. Journal of Theoretical Biology 215, 385–397.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed