Sagonas Kostas, Pafilis Panayiotis, Valakos Efstratios D
Department of Human and Animal Physiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Athens, Panepistimioupoli Zografou, 15784, Athens, Greece,
Naturwissenschaften. 2015 Oct;102(9-10):55. doi: 10.1007/s00114-015-1301-8. Epub 2015 Aug 28.
Living on islands entails numerous challenges for animals, among which resource scarcity stands out. In order to survive, animals have to optimize energy acquisition. We examined the impact of insularity on digestion comparing a series of physiological and morphological traits of adult males between insular and mainland populations of the Balkan green lizard. Island lizards had longer gastrointestinal tracts and gut passage times and higher digestive efficiencies. The dissection of the hindgut revealed an unexpected finding, the presence of cecal valves that were more frequent in island lizards. Thanks to all above islanders retain food for longer periods and thus maximize energy income and increase the amount of the extracted nutrients. That way, they secure energy income from the limited, in time and quantity, food resources of the islands.
生活在岛屿上给动物带来了诸多挑战，其中资源稀缺最为突出。为了生存，动物必须优化能量获取。我们通过比较巴尔干绿蜥蜴岛屿种群和大陆种群成年雄性的一系列生理和形态特征，研究了岛屿环境对消化的影响。岛屿蜥蜴的胃肠道更长、肠道通过时间更长且消化效率更高。对后肠的解剖揭示了一个意外发现，即盲肠瓣的存在，在岛屿蜥蜴中更为常见。由于上述所有因素，岛屿蜥蜴能将食物保留更长时间，从而使能量收入最大化，并增加提取的营养物质数量。通过这种方式，它们从岛屿上有限的、在时间和数量上都受限的食物资源中获取能量收入。
