1. Plasticity in food assimilation, retention time and coprophagy allow herbivorous cavies (Microcavia Australis) to cope with low food quality in the Monte desert- Sassi et al
BY FAAIZAH IYAZ, LIZ LEWANDOWSKI, GERALDI PRAJNAMITRA, AND SONAM SAKYA
geraldi

2. Background- Ruminant vs. non ruminant
Do you remember?
geraldi
Sherwood Fig : protein pathways in the ruminant
Stevens & Hume, Physiological review 1998

3. Foregut vs. Hindgut Foregut Advantages Hindgut Advantages
Microbial biome in Rumen
Maximize energy extraction and absorption of nutrients
Rumen can benefits from late sweep (intake poorer quality food and maximize extraction)
Hindgut Advantages
Relatively fast digestion
large intestine receives the late sweep
Individual obtains nutrients first
geraldi and liz

4. What is Coprophagy? Consumption of feces Why is this important?
-Nutrients pass by too fast
-Leads to system being limited with absorption
-Recycled nutrients back into the system
Young eat feces to establish a microbial population which grow in their gut
lizzle

5. Introduction to Paper
Main goal of this paper: Look at effects on digestibility, food ingestion rate, mean retention rate and number of coprophagy events in cavies from 2 different populations in the Monte Desert using low/ high quality food
Desert habitat: Matagusanos
Forest habitat: Nacunan
High quality food= alfalfa w/ water
Low quality= alfalfa w/ water and cellulose
lizzle

6. Hypotheses
1. Individuals compensate for low quality diets through increases in ingestion rate and/or selective retention of digesta
2. Individuals feeding on low quality diets perform coprophagy more often

7. Experiment 1- Mean Retention Time
Co-EDTA used as fluid digesta marker → not usual in cavies diet
Feces collected from low/ high quality food fed cavies
Mean retention time= amount of time spent in digestion
Calculated from time Co-EDTA was ingested to egestion
Faaizah

8. Results from Experiment 1
- MRT was lower for low quality diet than high quality food in cavies from Matagusanos
- MRT is similar between low/high quality food in cavies from Nacunan

9. Experiment 2- Coprophagy
Took video of 5 cavies from both locations, randomly fed low/high quality food
Analyzed video to detect number of coprophagy events of low/high quality food fed cavies
Results
Coprophagy rate is significantly higher for low quality diet compared to high quality diet
Experiment 2

10. I poop dingleberries hehe! :3
The Big Picture
Experimental data does support initial predictions
MRT indicates difference in cavie’s response to diet
low quality diet = increased coprophagy
I poop dingleberries hehe! :3
-mean retention time does show a difference in the two habitats and the cavies response to low quality diets.
Matagusanos had a lower retention time which meant a more rapid passage of food and more coprophagy events.
extracted more energy than the nacunans, and
nacunan MRTS were similar for both high and low quality diets, which means that they weren’t as flexible in response to nutrient availability.
In terms of coprophay Lower quality diets resulted in an increase of coprophagy events for the cavies they observed and obtained data from.