The spatial and temporal variation in food abundance has strong effects on wildlife feeding and nutrition. Here we present the first long term study of the effects of variation in fruit availability and age/sex class on nutritional ecology of wild Bornean orangutans. We examined variation in nutrient intake of wild orangutans in living in a peat swamp habitat over a 7-year period at the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station in Central Kalimantan. We conducted 2,316 full-day focal follows on 62 habituated orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii). We found differences in total energy and macronutrient intake across age-sex classes, controlling for metabolic body mass. Intake of both total energy and macronutrients varied with fruit availability, and preference of dietary items increased with their nutritional quality. Foraging-related variables, such as day journey length, travel time, and feeding time, also varied among age-sex classes and with fruit availability. Our results add to the growing body of literature suggesting that great variation in foraging strategies exists among species, populations, and age-sex classes and in response to periods of resource scarcity.

No abstract

Bottom-up regulatory factors have been proposed to exert a strong influence on mammalian population density. Studies relating habitat quality to population density have typically made comparisons among distant species or communities without considering variation in food quality among localities. We compared dietary nutritional quality of two Bornean orangutan populations with differing population densities in peatland habitats, Tuanan and Sabangau, separated by 63 km. We hypothesized that because Tuanan is alluvial, the plant species included in the orangutan diet would be of higher nutritional quality compared to Sabangau, resulting in higher daily caloric intake in Tuanan. We also predicted that forest productivity would be greater in Tuanan compared to Sabangau. In support of these hypotheses, the overall quality of the diet and the quality of matched dietary items were higher in Tuanan, resulting in higher daily caloric intake compared to Sabangau. These differences in dietary nutritional quality may provide insights into why orangutan population density is almost two times greater in Tuanan compared to Sabangau, in agreement with a potentially important influence of diet quality on primate population density.

Meat-eating is an important aspect of human evolution, but how meat became a substantial component of the human diet is still poorly understood. Meat-eating in our closest relatives, the great apes, may provide insight into the emergence of this trait, but most existing data are for chimpanzees. We report 3 rare cases of meat-eating of slow lorises, Nycticebus coucang, by 1 Sumatran orangutan mother–infant dyad in Ketambe, Indonesia, to examine how orangutans find slow lorises and share meat. We combine these 3 cases with 2 previous ones to test the hypothesis that slow loris captures by orangutans are seasonal and dependent on fruit availability. We also provide the first (to our knowledge) quantitative data and high-definition video recordings of meat chewing rates by great apes, which we use to estimate the minimum time necessary for a female Australopithecus africanus to reach its daily energy requirements when feeding partially on raw meat. Captures seemed to be opportunistic but orangutans may have used olfactory cues to detect the prey. The mother often rejected meat sharing requests and only the infant initiated meat sharing. Slow loris captures occurred only during low ripe fruit availability, suggesting that meat may represent a filler fallback food for orangutans. Orangutans ate meat more than twice as slowly as chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), suggesting that group living may function as a meat intake accelerator in hominoids. Using orangutan data as a model, time spent chewing per day would not require an excessive amount of time for our social ancestors (australopithecines and hominids), as long as meat represented no more than a quarter of their diet.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10764-011-9574-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Diabetes is a growing problem in modern times. Treating diabetes can be done using various ways, from traditional to modern methods. Herbal medicine is a traditional form of medication. Herbs can be used to treat diabetes, such as Senna alexandrina. The effects of herbal medicine are linked with the solvent used. In making a herbal drink on an industrial and private scale, the solvent used is ethanol and water. This study aimed to determine the best solvent to produce antioxidant and antidiabetic effects from S. alexandrina leaves. In vitro analysis using DPPH and α-glucosidase enzyme was done to find the antioxidant and antidiabetic properties. S. alexandrina leaves were macerated using ethanol and water. All extract was screened for phytochemical contents, and the bioactive compounds were profiled using LC-MS/MS. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents were determined using gallic acid and quercetin as standard compounds. S. alexandrina leaves showed antioxidant and antidiabetic properties. Ethanol 50% extract showed the best antioxidant and antidiabetic properties, followed by ethanol and water extracts. The IC50 value of the antidiabetic activity of ethanol 50% was 33.151 µg/mL and the IC50 value of antioxidant power was 160.502 µg/mL. The bioactive compounds were profiled in this extract including torachrysone-8-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, oroxin B, 3-O-[β-D-glucopyra-nosyl-(12)]-β-D-glucopyranosyl-kaempferol, 7-hydroxy-1-methoxy-2-methoxyxanthone, rhamnetin dan rubilactone.