Dynamics of food passing through the digestive tract in the nocturnal rodent Meriones crassus as a response to the rhythm of feeding activity

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Abstract

The dependence of the food passing through the digestive tract (DT) on the feeding activity in the nocturnal rodent Meriones crassus was studied. Two groups of gerbils were housed in laboratory under artificial lighting at a photoperiod of 12:12 L:D for 36 hours. Groups were named “day” (L:D=20:16) and “night” (L:D=12:24) according to predominance light or dark time during the experiment. The average retention time of markers in the stomach in these groups was 20 and 30 hours, respectively. The kinetics of the contents changed depending on the specific time of consumption of the markers and the saturation level of the rodents with food. During the daylight hours, sequential evacuation of markers entering the DT begins from the stomach after 2 hours, and at night, during a period of higher feeding activity, part of the food located in the fornix of the stomach and in the caecum stays here for a longer time. In the “day” group, by the end of the experiment, 84% of the markers were removed from DT, and in the “night” group, about 55%.

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E. I. Naumova

Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: einaumova@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119071

G. K. Zharova

Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: einaumova@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119071

T. Yu. Chistova

Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: einaumova@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119071

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. The content of markers (%) with different duration of exposure in each organ of the PT according to the results of autopsy in the day (a) and night (b) groups of gerbils.

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3. Fig. 2. Quantitative ratio of markers (%) in different sections of the PT at the end of the experiment in the daytime (a) and nighttime (b) groups of gerbils.

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4. Fig. 3. Relative content of markers in the stomach (a) and in the cecum (b), entering the PT at different times of the day.

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5. Fig. 4. Correlation between the relative mass of the stomach and the duration of food retention in it (a), r = –0.5591, and the relative mass of the cecum and the duration of food retention in it (b), r = –0.5906

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