Digestive flexibility in females of the subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum in their natural habitat?

DEL VALLE, J.C; LÓPEZ MAÑANES, A,A.

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY PART A-ECOLOGICAL GENETICS AND PHYSIOLOGY

WILEY-LISS, DIV JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: Malden,MA, USA; Año: 2011 vol. 315 p. 141 - 148

1932-5223

We studied the occurrence of digestive strategies at different levels in females of the subterraneanherbivorous rodent Ctenomys talarum living in their natural habitat. We determined thedimensions of different parts of the gastrointestinal tract and organs along as the activity of keydigestive enzymes (sucrase, maltase and N-aminopeptidase) in small intestine in femalesseasonally caught. Females of C. talarum did not show seasonal variations in the mass of thedifferent parts of the gastrointestinal tract. In nonreproductive females large intestine was longerin autumn, whereas reproductive females did not show seasonal variations in the length ofthe different parts of the gut. Females of C. talarum exhibited a high sucrose, maltase andN-aminopeptidase activity in small intestine, although these activities were higher in small intestineof females caught in autumn (nonreproductive) than in females caught in winter (reproductive). Theresults show that C. talarum females exhibit characteristics in the gut at the morphological andbiochemical level, which could represent digestive strategies to face the constraints imposed bytheir costly particular way of life. J. Exp. Zool. 315:141?148, 2011. & 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.How to cite this article: del Valle JC, Lo´pez Man?anes AA. 2011. Digestive flexibility in females of the subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum in their natural habitat. J. Exp. Zool. 315:141?148.