Nutritional Ecology of Ungulates

Ungulates, a diverse group of hoofed mammals including deer, sheep and cattle, navigate complex nutritional landscapes to meet the demands of survival, growth and reproduction. Nutritional ecology examines how these herbivores select, ingest and metabolise forage of varying quality and abundance across seasons and habitats. Central to this field is understanding the interplay between the nutritional composition of plants—energy, protein, fibre and micronutrients—and the physiological needs of animals, from maintaining basal metabolism to supporting gestation and lactation. Ungulates employ behavioural strategies such as selective foraging, seasonal migrations and risk-sensitive allocation of resources to buffer against environmental fluctuations. Somatic energy reserves, chiefly fat and protein stored during periods of food abundance, underpin capital-breeding species that rely on these stores during reproduction, whereas income breeders synchronise energy intake with reproductive demands. Nutritional constraints also modulate social dynamics, disease resistance and habitat use, with implications for population performance and conservation. Advances in remote sensing, field-based quantification of forage quality and longitudinal monitoring of body condition have illuminated how nutritional landscapes shape ungulate ecology at individual and population scales, informing management of wild herds and livestock under changing climates.

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Nutritional Ecology of Ungulates publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in nutritional ecology of ungulates across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Nutritional ecology: study of how animals select, ingest and utilise nutrients and energy from their environment.

Somatic energy reserves: body stores of fat and protein that animals accumulate to support survival and reproduction when intake is limited.

Risk-sensitive resource allocation: adaptive strategy by which animals adjust investment between survival (e.g. fat storage) and reproduction in response to environmental unpredictability.

Capital breeding: reproductive mode in which animals rely primarily on stored body reserves to fuel energetically costly phases such as gestation and lactation.

References

1. Infection–nutrition feedbacks: fat supports pathogen clearance but pathogens reduce fat in a wild mammal. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2024).
2. Shifts in risk sensitivity and resource availability alter fat stores for a large mammal following extreme winter conditions. Functional Ecology (2023).
3. Preliminary Estimation of Nutritional Quality of the Meat, Liver, and Fat of the Indigenous Yakutian Cattle Based on Their Fatty Acid Profiles. Foods (2023).