Effects Of Food Change On Intestinal Microflora Of Plateau Pika

By using four plant species with different tannin content,Kobresia humilis,Leontopodium nanum,Pedicularis kansuensis,and Potentilla anserina,the effects of food rich in tannin on food intake,bogy weight,and intestinal microflora of plateau pika was investigated in indoor feeding experiment.The main results are as follows:1.Tannin food had a significant influence on food consumption of plateau pika.Compared with control,the consumption amount of four species diclined significantly with the increas of feeding time.There were negetive correlations between food comsumption and feeding time.The order of falling range in food consumption was accordance with the taninn content of four plant species: Potentilla anserina > Pedicularis kansuensis > Leontopodium nanum > Kobresia humilis.2.Tannin food also had significant influence on body weight of plateau pika.The body weight of pikas fed on mixed plants increased with the prolongation of the feeding time,and there was a significant positive correlation between body weight and feeding time.The body weights fed on other four tannin food,however,declined significantly as the increas of feeding time.There were negetive correlations between body weight and feeding time.This indicated that with the increase of tannin content in food,the platability of food become inferiority,resulted in the decreas of body weight.3.The tannin food not only had important enfluence on food consumption and body weight of plateau pika,but also had different effects on some visceral organs.The heart and lungs of plateau pika was not affected by food,but the liver,spleen,and kidney were affected significantly by food.This results showed that the food containing higher tannin will produce a certain degree of physiological toxicity to rodents.4.Changes in diet had significant effects on intestinal microflora of Plateau pika.The diversity,richness and evenness of total intestinal microflora of plateau pika fed on tannins food were significantly decreased,and as the increase of tannin content in the food,the decline degree of diversity index increased.The influence tendency of food on the diversity of Lactobacillus of plateau pika was similar to that of the total intestinal microflora,which showed that the diversityindex decreased with the increase of tannin content in food.The tannin food,however,had no obviously influence on bacteroides of plateau pika.