Undergraduate Research: An Archive - 2022 Program

Maria Russo ’22
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Senior Thesis Research Funding Awardee
HEALTH AND DISEASE
THESIS TITLE
Household
Hypercarnivores:
Modern Trends in
Commercial Cat Food
Composition and
Implications for the
Health of Domestic Cats
(Felis catus)
ADVISER
Daniel Rubenstein,
Class of 1877 Professor
of Zoology, Professor of
Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology
Cat ownership is on the rise at an unprecedented
rate and the pet food market has consequently
grown and increased in value at record levels.
These trends are coupled with a rise in the
popularity of plant-based diets in humans,
leading to a growing interest in plant-based cat
foods as well. However, several issues within
companion-animal nutrition research and the
commercial pet food industry have allowed for
the propagation of formulations that may be
inadequate or unsafe for feline nutritional needs,
with potential causative links to common feline
health issues. For my thesis, I compiled available
research on feline commercial diets, nutritional
needs, dietary-derived health concerns, and
the shortcomings of commercial formulations,
particularly with respect to plant-based diets.
The synthesis of these findings exposed chronic,
widespread quality and standardization issues in
the pet-food industry and in the manufacture of
plant-based diets for house cats, and determined
links between nutrient imbalances and feline
health conditions.
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