Many animals have been shown to select among nutritionally complementary foods to reach a specific balance of nutrients that optimizes key life history traits. Nutritional ecology theory, however, predicts that an animal with a diet that is very stable in its composition, and with nutritional requirements that do not vary in their balance through time, would not need to display such mechanisms of regulation. Here we use the Australian termite Nasutitermes exitiosus as a model to test this prediction for the first time. We used the nutritional geometric framework to investigate the regulation of carbohydrate and protein, as well as the effects on foraging behaviour of protein type and group caste composition and size. Our results support the prediction of nutritional ecology, as termites failed to actively defend a well-defined macronutrient ratio. Termites maintained food collection relatively constant across protein type and group composition, and only appear to vary their collection by avoiding diets too rich in protein.

中文翻译：

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白蚁大量营养素摄入的调节：饮食自选择实验。


许多动物已被证明会选择营养补充食品，以达到特定的营养平衡，从而优化关键的生活史特征。然而，营养生态学理论预测，如果动物的饮食成分非常稳定，并且营养需求不会随着时间的推移而发生平衡变化，则不需要表现出这种调节机制。在这里，我们使用澳大利亚白蚁 Nasutitermes exitiosus 作为模型，首次测试这一预测。我们使用营养几何框架来研究碳水化合物和蛋白质的调节，以及蛋白质类型和群体种姓组成和大小对觅食行为的影响。我们的结果支持营养生态学的预测，因为白蚁未能积极捍卫明确的常量营养素比例。白蚁在蛋白质类型和群体组成方面保持食物收集相对恒定，并且似乎只是通过避免蛋白质含量过高的饮食来改变其收集。