MaRGA Meeting, 2004: Abstracts

2: Nutrition

Nutrient Requirements of the Marmoset:
Phylogeny, Ecology and Some Hard Data

M. Power

Affiliation: Nutrition Laboratory, Department of Conservation Biology, Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, Washington DC

Estimates of nutrient requirements for exotic species are more often arrived at by intelligent guesswork than by actual hard data. Nutritionists and animal managers tasked with the responsibility of maintaining collections of exotic species frequently must rely on information concerning the phylogeny, anatomy (especially gut morphology), ecology, natural history, and their personal experience with a species in order to devise satisfactory diets. Even for important laboratory animals, such as the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) which has been kept in laboratory colonies for more than 40 years, studies that contribute data on nutrient requirements are few and far between. I will briefly review what is known and what can be deduced regarding nutrient requirements for common marmosets based on their phylogeny, anatomy, and natural history. For example, the fact that they are primates all but guarantees that they have a requirement for vitamin C. Their small body size and gut morphology imply that they have a limited ability to digest insoluble fiber, although they would appear to be able to digest soluble fiber, such as gum. Although gums and other plant exudates have an important place in their wild diet, there are no data that suggest that these foods provide any required nutrition that cannot be provided by other means in captivity. I will briefly explore this issue, and the possible role that fermentable substrates may or may not play in marmoset nutrition. There are good data relevant to energy and protein requirements, and I will discuss these in more detail. Finally, I will discuss the theoretically fascinating, but practically confusing and aggravating issue of vitamin D and calcium metabolism in marmosets and other New World primates.