https://www.socictopen.socict.org/items/show/20612
title: Nutritional ecology and digestive response to dietary shift in the large South American fox, Pseudalopex culpaeus Ecología nutricional y respuesta digestiva a cambios en la dieta en el zorro sudamericano grande, Pseudalopex culpaeus
subject: Dietary shift, cambio dietario, consumo de frutos, cuello de botella nutricional, fox, fruit consumption, nutritional bottleneck, zorro
description: We tested the role of dietary shifts (from rodents to fruits and to mixed diets) on the nutritional ecology of the culpeo fox Pseudalopex culpaeus, a native canid of South America. We studied the effects of food quality on digestive processes, nutrition, and mass balance, and the implications of diet quality for fox survival. We observed at the end of the nutritional trials that body mass differed significantly between the three diet groups (fruits, rats and mixed diets), while percentage of body mass change differed significantly only in the fruit diet treatment. Foxes fed with fruits consumed more food to meet their dietary and metabolic needs. Across diets, dry-matter as well as energy digestibility increased significantly with diet quality. Also, mean retention time was negatively and significantly correlated with dry-matter intake. We put forth that mixed diet may yield higher assimilation efficiencies and hence higher nutrient intakes than those predicted from the ingestion and assimilation of pure diets (i.e,. only rats, only fruits). We hypothesize that during periods of low availability of mammalian prey, a mixed diet should yield a positive energy/mass balance for the fox. We conclude that temporal and spatial variation in nutrient, energy, and water contents of prey available in a given habitat could have an important effect on fox nutrition, energy use, and mass balance. Finally, we postulate that P. culpaeus could not survive on fruits only past seven daysSometimos a prueba el papel del cambio de dieta (desde roedores a frutos y dieta mixta) sobre la ecología nutricional del zorro culpeo Pseudalopex culpaeus, especie nativa de Sudamérica. Estudiamos el efecto de la calidad del alimento sobre los procesos digestivos, nutrición, balance de masas y las implicancias de la calidad de la dieta sobre la sobrevivencia de los zorros. La masa corporal al final de los ensayos nutricionales difirió significativamente entre los tres grupos de dietas (frutos, ratas y…
creator: FABIÁN M. JAKSIC, FRANCISCO BOZINOVIC, SERGIO I. SILVA
source: Revista Chilena de Historia Natural
publisher: BMC
date: 2005
relation: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-078X2005000200007
coverage: Botany, Zoology