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Phenotypic flexibility of structure and function of the digestive system of Japanese quail

J. Matthias Starck^1,* and Gamal Hasan Abdel Rahmaan^1,2

¹ Institute of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Jena, Erbertstraße 1, D-07743 Jena, Germany
² Institute of Zoology, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

View larger version (16K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Body mass changes in response to diet-switching. On day 0, food was switched from standard to a high-fibre diet (40% fibre) in the experimental group (black symbols). Animals in the control group (white symbols) continued to feed on standard diet during the entire period. Values are means ± S.D., N=6 for each group.

View larger version (13K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Food intake in control (white symbols) and experimental group (black symbols) when switched from standard diet to high-fibre diet (40% fibre). Values are means ± S.D., N=6 for each group. The black circle indicates mean standard food intake of all 12 birds before the experiment started.

View larger version (143K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Histology of quail gizzard muscle. (A) Control, (B) 4 days after switching to the high-fibre diet (40% fibre), (C) 10 days after switching to the high-fibre diet, (D) 4 days after switching from the high-fibre diet back to standard food. Scale bars, 100 µm.

View larger version (32K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Hypertrophy of smooth muscle cells in response to feeding a high-fibre diet. (A) Number of nuclei mm–1 change in response to repeated switches from standard food (white areas) to the high-fibre diet (45% fibre, tinted area). Values are means ± S.D. (N=5); black symbols, experimental animals; white symbols, control. (B) Time course of hypertrophy of smooth muscle cells in response to the high-fibre diet. In A and B, the dotted lines refer to associated gizzard size changes (right axis) of experimental and control groups as reported in Starck (1999b). Mean values denoted by different letters differ significantly according to the REGWQ-test, P<0.001.

View larger version (29K): [in a new window]   Fig. 5. Oxygen consumption of quail fed standard food (white areas) and high-fibre diet (titnted areas). Values are means ± S.D. of 5 adult male quail.