Quantifying soluble carbohydrates in tropical leaves using a portable mid‐infrared sensor: Implications for primate feeding ecology

Abstract

Identifying the nutritional composition of food items has significant ramifications for primate feeding ecology, which, in turn, influences investigations of primate sociality, cognition, and conservation. The aim of our study was to analyze water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) concentrations in the leaves of trees common to the Diani Forest of Kenya. Many of these leaves are consumed by black and white colobus monkeys (Colobus angolensis palliatus). We assessed whether the infrared spectral data collected using a portable spectrometer can be used to accurately predict WSC concentrations. WSC content was first quantified using the phenol-sulfuric acid method for young and mature leaves of 24 species and ranged from 1.15% to 9.16% dry weight. Spectral data were recorded with a spectrometer equipped with an attenuated total reflectance accessory (Agilent Cary 630) and analyzed using partial least squares regression. The spectral region from 1600 cm(-1) to 1000 cm(-1) gave unique polysaccharide bands associated with carboxyl, acetyl, and glycosidic linkages of sugar residues. The multivariate analysis gave excellent performance parameters with correlation coefficient (r(2) ) of 0.95 and standard error of cross-validation of 0.6% WSC. We found that IR spectroscopy provides a rapid and accurate technique for analyzing WSC concentrations and offers primatologists many advantages over wet chemistry methods for analyzing nutritional composition. Am. J. Primatol. 78:701-706, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Nutrient intake and balancing among femaleColobus angolensis palliatusinhabiting structurally distinct forest areas: Effects of group, season, and reproductive state

“…Fat was quantified using a modified Bligh and Dyer () technique. Water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) concentrations were calculated using the phenol–sulfuric acid method (BeMiller & Low, ; Dubois, Gilles, Hamilton, & Rebers, ) with modifications to accommodate WSC quantification from solid substances (Dunham, Kane, & Rodriguez‐Saona, ). Neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) were analyzed sequentially following Van Soest, Robertson, and Lewis ().…”

Isolation and Characterization of a Novel Sialoglycopeptide Promoting Osteogenesis from Gadus morhua Eggs

“…The carbohydrate content of Gm-SGPP was determined using the phenol-sulfuric acid method using glucose as the standard [38]. Monosaccharide composition was analyzed through the PMP precolumn derivatization with HPLC (PMP-HPLC) method using a ZORBAX Eclipse XDB-C18 column (Agilent, USA) [39].…”