The wide-eyed cows, fat pigs and fluffy sheep of Wyoming, like animals all around the word, combat natural toxins with their digestive processes. The scientists behind the GUTT research project are looking at these herbivores’ guts to figure out just which toxic plants they are consuming and how the animals tolerate them.
Rongsong Liu, an associate professor in the UW Department of Mathematics and Statistics, is part of “Genomes Underlying Toxin Tolerance (GUTT): Identifying Molecular Innovations that Predict Phenotypes of Toxin Tolerance in Wild Vertebrate Herbivores,” a multi-university project working to identify the toxins in wild plants that mammalian and avian herbivores are ingesting.
Liu was awarded a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research on Aug. 15, effective through July 2022, to look at the herbivores’ gut microbes and how they tolerate these toxins from the plants.
“Increased understanding of plant toxins and herbivore tolerance is important for conservation biologists who manage native plants and herbivores,” Liu said in a release. “The ranching and agricultural communities that rely on plants to feed livestock and rely on chemicals to defend crops from pests; and the medical community that relies on plant-derived chemicals to manage human health.”
From UW, Jeff Beck and Dr. Derek Scasta from the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, and Dr. Bledar Bisha and Kevin Montieth from the Department of Zoology and Physiology, in addition to Liu, are part of the study. Universities in Idaho and Nevada are also a part of the project.
Each individual is bringing their own expertise to the GUTT team. Beck is coordinating the collection of field data, and Scasta is transferring results from the herbivores to how the toxins may be affecting domestic species. Bisha is looking at the microbial metabolism of the toxins in the herbivores, and Monteith is linking the physiological data to the demographic data of the herbivores. Liu’s role is modeling.
“We will build up mathematical models to describe the system, use experimental data to estimate some parameter values, and interpret the theoretical and simulation results in terms of the original biological systems,” she said.
The research could have implications for maintaining healthier livestock and successful livestock businesses, as well as adding to medical knowledge about plant toxins.
