关键词: 东方田鼠, 食粪, 消化率, 体重生长

Abstract: Caecotrophy is an important adaptive strategy to meet the nutrition needs in small mammalian herbivores. In the vole Microtus fortis, caecotrophy prevention may result in various physiological responses, including lowered food digestibility and reduced growth. In the present study, we compared voles that were prevented from caecotrophy to those of the control group with normal caecotrophy using 1 month and 12 months old individuals with regard to digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, and neutral detergent fiber, body weight, and daily food intake. Compared to the control groups, the dry matter digestibility of the treated 1-month and 12-months individuals decreased by 27.64 % and 7.89 %, respectively, and crude protein digestibility decreased by 21.39% and 12.68 %, respectively. The body weight of the treated individuals was significantly lower than the control individuals while the daily food intake was significantly higher. In addition, the treated 1-month individuals suffered more weight loss than 12-month individuals. Our results showed that caecotrophy prevention could cause reduced food digestibility and restrain weight growth in Microtus fortis as in other small mammalian herbivores, and that caecotrophy might be especially important for the young voles.

Key words: Caecotrophy, Digestibility, Growth, Microtus fortis