Marsupial Nutrition

A comprehensive description of the food resources, digestive systems and metabolisms of marsupials, first published in 1999.

Ian D. Hume (Author)

9780521595551, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 May 1999

450 pages, 132 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 2.3 cm, 0.71 kg

'Marsupial Nutrition is an excellent monograph on an active topic. It is destined to be the major reference on the subject for many years, and will surely stimulate much new work in the discipline.' Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe, Australian Zoologist

Marsupial Nutrition, first published in 1999, describes the food resources used by marsupials as diverse as small insectivores and large folivores. It discusses the ways in which their digestive systems and metabolism are designed to cope with foods as different as nectar and fungus, tree sap and tough perennial grasses, and insects and eucalypt foliage. Although the subject species are marsupials, the general principles of nutritional ecology and digestive strategies that are introduced at the beginning of the chapters are applicable to all mammals. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students at all levels in the area of vertebrate zoology, nutrition, ecology and digestive physiology will find Marsupial Nutrition particularly instructive, but wildlife biologists, veterinarians and nutritionists will also find much of interest.

Preface
1. Metabolic rates and nutrient requirements
2. Carnivorous marsupials
3. Omnivorous marsupials
4. Hindgut fermenters - the wombats
5. Hindgut fermenters - the arboreal folivores
6. Foregut fermenters - kangaroos and wallabies
7. Nutritional ecology of kangaroos and wallabies
8. Foregut fermenters - the rat-kangaroos
9. Evolution of marsupials and of digestive systems
10. Future directions
Appendix
References.

Subject Areas: Marsupials & monotremes [PSVW71], Animal physiology [PSVD]