Gustatory responsiveness to food-associated sugars and acids in pigtail macaques, Macaca nemestrina

Abstract

Taste-preference thresholds for five food-associated sugars and acids, respectively, as well as relative sweet-taste preferences were assessed in six pigtail macaques using two-bottle choice tests of brief duration (1 min). In experiment 1, the animals were found to significantly prefer concentrations as low as 10 mM maltose and sucrose, 20 mM fructose and glucose, and 30 mM lactose over tap water. In experiment 2, the monkeys were given a choice between all binary combinations of the same five saccharides presented in equimolar concentrations of 50, 100, 200, and 400 mM. Preferences for individual sugars were stable across the concentrations tested and indicate the following order of relative effectiveness: maltose>sucrose>glucose≥fructose≥lactose. In experiment 3, Macaca nemestrina was found to significantly discriminate concentrations as low as 5 mM malic acid, 10 mM ascorbic acid, 20 mM citric acid and acetic acid, and 0.5 mM tannic acid from the alternative stimulus. With the latter substance, the monkeys rejected all suprathreshold concentrations tested, whereas with the former four substances, the animals showed an inverted U-shaped function of preference. The results showed pigtail macaques to be the first primate species tested so far whose taste-preference threshold for maltose is as low as that for sucrose, and which — similar to rodents — prefers maltose over equimolar concentrations of sucrose and other saccharides. Further, unlike most other primates, pigtail macaques do not generally reject acidic tastants but show a substance- and concentration-dependent change in their behavioral response that may range from rejection to preference. The results support the assumption that the gustatory responsiveness of M. nemestrina to food-associated sugars and acidic tastants might reflect an evolutionary adaptation to its dietary habits.