13/12/2023
! 🦅🪶🦜🦩 Jarman, A. K., Shaw, M. E., & Grueber, C. E. (2023). Current perspectives in avian nutrition: domestic animal models and their role in conservation management. Ibis.
This review describes current standards in nutritional management of birds and recommends pathways for filling knowledge gaps.
The authors combine concepts of domestic animal nutrition with recent findings on the nutritional requirements of birds to provide a foundation for further studies of avian nutrition.
Abstract excerpt:
🦅 Diet contributes to the reproductive success, disease status and longevity of all animals. It is near-impossible to replicate a species’
diet in captivity using only the species they consume in the wild, but the nutritional composition of a wild diet, if known, can be closely matched using commercially available foods for which the nutritional composition has been calculated.
🦜 Ecological research has identified food items of importance in the diet of many species. However, the nutritional composition of these food items is rarely evaluated, even though the composition of wild
food items is important in understanding the dietary adaptations and requirements of wildlife... ..Access to wild populations provides further opportunities for nutritional science to determine the requirements of individual species. Small-scale dietary experimentation undertaken at conservation institutions may show positive effects on health and welfare but is rarely published in the scientific literature.
Authors call for the broader zoological community to share data and collaborate on nutritional research to support conservation institutions in nutritional management of wild birds 🪶
Read the paper here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ibi.13289
