Animal Nutrition
Dec 25, 2015
Nutritional Requirements
• Nutritional diet fulfills 3 needs:• 1Fuel – energy for work.• 2Raw materials – for
biosynthesis.• 3Essential nutrients – body can’t
make.• Flow of energy in/out – budget.
• ATP comes from oxidation of organic molecules.
• Take in more calories than needed – rest for biosynthesis.
• Liver stores excess as glycogen; above and beyond stores, stores as fat.
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/NR/rdonlyres/32143992-B411-43F4-8B25-AB3A460A3478/0/LiverFINALweb.jpg
• Regulation of blood glucose: glucose levels rise – pancreas secretes insulin – stimulates liver to store excess – decreases levels.
• Glucose drops – pancreas secretes glucagon – breakdown of glycogen – increases levels.
• Fewer calories than needed – fuel taken out of storage (liver 1st, muscles 2nd)
• Most people have enough stores to last weeks.
• Undernourishment – uses muscles for energy, eventually brain.
• Even if survives, permanent damage occurs.
• Overnourishment – excessive food intake – results in obesity.
• Advantage during hunting/gathering days.
• Human body has set weight – sets limits on weight loss/gain.
• Leptin (hormone) – produced by adipose cells – decreases hunger (when levels high).
• Decrease causes increase in appetite.
• Obesity beneficial in some species (travel long distances)
• Animal’s diet must supply materials for biosynthesis.
• Also supply essential nutrients (i.e. vitamin C)
• Missing nutrients – malnourished.• More common than
undernourishment.• 20 amino acids needed to make
proteins – eight are essential (needed from diet).
• Protein deficiency most common malnourishment – causes mental retardation in children.
• Animal proteins – complete (have all essential amino acids)
• Plant proteins – incomplete.• Combination in plants fulfill all
essentials.• Can’t be stored – need to be
eaten daily.
• Animals adapt to needs – penguins use muscle proteins for energy for molting.
• Essential fatty acids needed as well.
• Vitamins – organic molecules needed in small quantities.
• 13 essential vitamins.
• Minerals – inorganic nutrients needed in small amounts.
• Excess of sodium (salt) dangerous – high blood pressure; excess iron – liver damage.
Food Types
• 3 categories of eating habits – 1herbivores (plant eaters), 2carnivores (meat eaters), 3omnivores (both)
• Most animals opportunistic – will eat outside category if needed.
• 4 ways to ingest food.
• 1Suspenion-feeders – sift small particles from water (baleen whales)
• 2Deposit-feeders – eat through sediment; extract decaying organic material (earthworms)
• 3Substrate-feeders – live on food source (maggots)
• 4Fluid-feeders – suck fluids from host (mosquitoes, leeches)
• Most animals bulk-feeders – eat large pieces of food.
• Use fangs, teeth, claws, etc. to eat food.
Overview of food processing
• 1Ingestion - food taken into system. (Eating)
• Polymers broken down into monomers so body can digest them.
• 2Digestion - breaking food down into molecules small enough for body to absorb.
• Digestion reverses process that cell uses to link together monomers to form macromolecules.
• Mechanical digestion - physical breaking down of food; chemical digestion - act of enzymes on broken down food.
• 3Absorption - animal’s cells take up small molecules (i.e. amino acids, simple sugars) from digestive compartment.
• 4Elimination - undigested material passes out of digestive compartment.
• To avoid digesting own self, most digestion compartmentalized.
• In cell - food vacuoles - hydrolytic enzymes break down food without digesting cell’s own cytoplasm (intracellular digestion).
• Protists - take in food by phagocytosis or pinocytosis.
• Food digested in food vacuole, then fuses with lysosomes to break food down further.
• Vacuole fuses with anal pore that eliminates it from body.
• Extracellular digestion - food broken down outside cell.
• Cnidaria have digestive sacs with single openings (gastrovascular cavities).
• Food taken in, eliminated through same opening.
• Organisms have complete digestive tracts (alimentary canals) with mouth, digestive tube, anus - specialized to carry out digestion.
• Food ingested through mouth, pharynx passes through esophagus to crop, gizzard, or stomach, depending on species.
• Crop (or stomach) - food storage.• Gizzard - breaks down food.• Allows organisms to ingest
additional food before earlier meals completely digested.
Mammalian Digestive System
• Consists of alimentary canal, various accessory glands that secrete digestive juices into canal through ducts.
• Peristalsis, rhythmic waves of contraction by smooth muscles in walls of canal, push food along.
• Sphincters, muscular ring-like valves, regulate passage of material between specialized chambers of canal.
• Accessory glands - salivary glands, pancreas, liver, gallbladder.
• Physical, chemical digestion of food begins in mouth.
• Presence of food in oral cavity triggers nervous reflex - causes salivary glands to deliver saliva through ducts to oral cavity.
• Salivation may occur in anticipation -learned associations between eating, time of day, cooking odors, etc.
• Saliva contains mucin - helps food slide down esophagus easier.
• Chemical digestion of carbohydrates main source of chemical energy, begins in oral cavity - done by salivary amylase.
• Food made into ball - bolus.
• Pharynx (throat) - junction that opens to esophagus and trachea (windpipe).
• Swallow - top of windpipe moves up - opening, glottis, blocked by cartilaginous flap, (epiglottis) - helps to prevent us from choking.
• Not swallowing - esophageal sphincter muscles contracted - epiglottis up, glottis open, allowing airflow to lungs.
• When food bolus reaches pharynx, larynx moves upward and epiglottis tips over glottis, closing off trachea.
• Esophageal sphincter relaxes, bolus enters esophagus.
• Larynx moves downward, trachea opened, peristalsis moves bolus down esophagus to stomach.
• Esophagus conducts food from pharynx down to stomach by peristalsis.
• Stomach located in upper abdominal cavity, below diaphragm.
• Stomach secretes digestive fluid (gastric juice), mixes secretion with food by churning action of smooth muscles in stomach wall.
• Gastric juice secreted by epithelium lining numerous deep pits in stomach wall.
• Contains hydrochloric acid (acidic enough to dissolve iron nails) and pepsin, enzyme that begins hydrolysis of proteins.
http://courseweb.edteched.uottawa.ca/Medicine-histology/English/Gastrointestinal/Sm_Images/fig10stompits.gif
• Pepsin secreted in inactive form, pepsinogen, by specialized chief cells in gastric pits.
• Parietal cells, also in pits, secrete hydrochloric acid - converts pepsinogen to active pepsin only when both reach lumen of stomach, minimizing self-digestion.
• Stomach’s 2nd line of defense against self-digestion is coating of mucus, secreted by epithelial cells, protects stomach lining.
• Ulcers occur when stomach lining eaten through.
• Stomach churns food, produces chyme.
• Sometimes chyme backs up into esophagus (heartburn).
• Pyloric sphincter (at opening of small intestine) prevents material from moving into small intestine too quickly.
• Small intestine longest section of alimentary canal.
• Most absorption takes place here.• Duodenum - chyme from stomach
mixes with digestive juices from pancreas, liver, gall bladder, gland cells of intestinal wall.
• Liver performs wide variety of important functions in body, including production of bile.
• Bile stored in gall bladder until ready to use.
• Bile used to breakdown fats.• Each enzyme has specific role in
digestion.
• Starch, glycogen continue to be broken down in small intestine.
• Pancreatic amylase aids in process.
• Digestion of proteins in small intestine completes process begun by pepsin.
• Done by several enzymes.
• Trypsin, chymotrypsin attack peptide bonds adjacent to specific amino acids, breaking larger polypeptides into shorter chains.
• Dipeptidases, attached to intestinal lining, split smaller chains.
• Carboxypeptidase, aminopeptidase split off 1 amino acid from carboxyl or amino end of peptide, respectively.
• Nucleic acids digested in small intestines by an enzyme (nuclease).
• All fat in meal reaches small intestine undigested.
• Emulsification allows fat droplets to be coated by bile so they can pass through system.
• Lipase - enzyme that breaks fats down.
• Most digestion occurs in duodenum.
• Other 2 sections of small intestine, jejunum and ileum, function mainly in absorption of nutrients and water.
• Nutrients in lumen must pass lining of digestive tract.
• Surface area of small increased by microvilli - appendages off of villi.
• Help increase amount of absorption.
• Transport of nutrients across epithelial cells can be passive.
• Active mechanisms of digestion, including peristalsis, enzyme secretion, active transport, may require animal to expend amount of energy = 3% - 30% of chemical energy contained in meal.
• Hormones released by wall of stomach and duodenum ensure digestive secretions present only when needed.
• Can be released when we see or smell food.
• Certain substances in food stimulate stomach wall to release hormone gastrin into circulatory system.
• As recirculates, gastrin stimulates further secretion of gastric juice.
• If pH of stomach contents become too low, acid will inhibit release of gastrin.
• Other hormones, (enterogastrones), are secreted by walls of duodenum.
• Cholecystokinin (CCK), secreted in response to presence of amino acids or fatty acids, causes gallbladder to contract, release bile into small intestine; triggers release of pancreatic enzymes.
• Large intestine (colon) connected to small intestine where sphincter controls movement of materials.
• Small cecum (1st part of colon) of humans has appendix - makes minor contribution to body defense.
• Major function of colon - to recover water that has entered alimentary canal as solvent to digestive juices.
• Digestive wastes, feces, become more solid as move along colon by peristalsis.
• In large intestine - rich flora of mostly harmless bacteria.
• Feces contain masses of bacteria and undigested materials including cellulose.
• Terminal portion of colon - rectum, feces stored until eliminated.
Evolutionary Adaptations
• Vertebrate digestive systems alike, have some differences based on diets.
• Dentition (animal’s assortment of teeth) example of structural variation reflecting diet.
• Nonmammalian vertebrates - less specialized dentition (exceptions)
• Snakes - ability to swallow food whole.
• Unhinge jaw to get entire organism in.
• Large, expandable stomachs common in carnivores - may go for long time between meals; must eat as much as they can when they catch prey.
• Length of vertebrate digestive system correlated with diet.
• More plants, longer tract seems to be to allow more time for digestion and reabsorption.
• Most energy in plants comes from cell walls.
• Cellulose cannot be digested by many organisms.
• Symbiotic microbes can digest it. Location of symbiotic microbes in herbivores’ digestive tracts varies depending on species.
• Most elaborate adaptations for herbivorous diet have evolved in ruminants (deer, cattle, sheep).
• When cow first chews and swallows mouthful of grass, boluses enter rumen and reticulum.
• Symbiotic bacteria, protists digest cellulose-rich meal, secreting fatty acids. Cow regurgitates, rechews cud, which further breaks down cellulose fibers. Cow reswallows cud, water removed.
• Cud, with many microorganisms digested by cow’s enzymes.