Meeting Abstract
Herbivores are confronted with potentially toxic diets at every meal, and therefore, must employ physiological, microbial or behavioral processes to circumvent dietary toxicity. This presentation reviews our physiological and behavioral work on this topic with a focus on the results from our studies on herbivorous rodents ( and species). With respect to physiological mechanisms related to dietary specialization on toxic diets, we have 1) identified patterns in particular biotransformation (“detoxification”) enzymes and quantified the energetic costs of some of these enzymes, 2) correlated gene copy number with dietary specialization, and 3) identified and characterized, at the molecular level, several novel P450s of importance. We are currently undertaking a genome resequencing approach to identify the physiological mechanisms that enable ingestion of toxic diets. On the behavioral front, we have documented unique feeding behaviors used by rodents to circumvent complex toxins in fruits. This work, which had its origins in the research group of Dr. William Karasov, advances our understanding of the mechanisms used by herbivorous mammals to deal with toxic diets.
