Neonatal nutrition and longitudinal growth in baboons: Adiposity measured by skinfold thickness

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a 5 year longitudinal experiment that (1) examined growth in adiposity of a group of 48 clinically normal olive savannah baboons (Papio cynocephalus anubis) who were randomly assigned at birth to one of three diet treatments that differed, during the first 16 weeks, in the amount of nutrients they provided; (2) tested the hypothesis that different amounts of food availability during the neonatal period (birth to 16 weeks) had a significant effect on growth and development of adiposity in the subsequent infant, juvenile, and adolescent periods; and (3) evaluated the extent to which underfed (LC) and overfed (HC) subjects were capable of growth canalization. Each diet contained different caloric densities but the same proportion of fat (34%), carbohydrate (55%), and protein (11%). All animals were fed the same volume of formula; however, HC subject were fed 40% more calories than MC subjects, who were fed 40% more calories than the LC subjects. Growth and development of adiposity were assessed by measuring neck, triceps, subscapular, and suprailiac skinfolds weekly from birth to 16 weeks and at 13 week intervals from 26 to 260 weeks of age. We found that during the first 16 weeks of the experiments, baboon growth was strongly influenced by food shortages but not by excesses; however, when the dietary treatment ceased, growth appeared to be strongly regulated by a genetic component (developmental canalization) and tended to return to a more normal growth pattern within a 26 week time frame. Males and females exhibited differences in adipose development in that males did not exhibit residual treatment effects while females tended to retain the effects of neonatal dietary treatments through early adolescence.

Growth of nursery‐raised Macaca nemestrina infants: Effects of feeding schedules, sex, and birth weight

“…Infants on the distributed schedule ingested up to 25% fewer calories per day, yet gained as much weight as ad lib infants and had at least equal weight gain per calorie consumed. These results are consonant with those reported by Coehlo and Rutenberg [1989], who found minimal growth differences among infant baboons fed a normal versus excessive amount of calories.…”

Morphological variation in the genus Chlorocebus: Ecogeographic and anthropogenically mediated variation in body mass, postcranial morphology, and growth

“…Data on morphological variation are also often collected from populations of living animals at a single location. Such populations often have limited geographic distributions (e.g., booted macaques: Schillaci and Stallmann, 2005; Gombe chimpanzees: Pusey et al, 2005; ring tailed lemurs: Cuozzo and Sauther, 2006) or are housed in laboratories or semi-naturalistic environments (e.g., rhesus macaques: Tanner et al, 1990; Schwartz and Kemnitz, 1992; Turnquist and Kessler, 1989; mangabeys: Deputte, 1992; baboons: Coelho and Rutenberg, 1989; mandrills: Setchell et al, 2001). Finally, comparisons of morphological variation more broadly within genera may be made across numerous independent study sites, collected by different research groups.…”

Growth, development, and sexual dimorphism in vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) at four sites in Kenya

“…Available studies on captive Macaca mulatta (van Wegenen and Catchpole, 1956;Wilen and Naftolin, 1976;Watts and Gavan, 1982;Schwartz et al, 1988;Wilson et al, 1989;Tanner et al, 1990), Macaca arctoides (Faucheaux et al, 1978), Papio hamadryas anubis (Glassman et al, 1984;Coelho and Rutenberg, 1989), Pan troglodytes (Watts and Gavan, 1982), Pongo pygmaeus (Fooden and Izor, 1983), Cercocebus albigena (Deputte, 1992), and semi-naturalistic populations of Mandrillus sphinx (Wickings and Dixon, 1992) and M. mulatta (Turnquist and Kessler, 1989) indicate that these nonhuman primates, like humans, are sexually dimorphic and bimaturic with the pattern of growth being different in males and females. Relatively few spe-cies have been examined.…”