| Columba livia, original from Europe, is at present widely distributed all over the world. These granivores colonized urban environments where the availability of crops and seeds is not always permanent and, for that are forced to exploit other resources with different composition, e.g. high protein foodstuff. Thus, feral pigeons should have the ability to survive on a diet rich in protein as they do with starchy items by having an adequate digestive biochemical machinery to process it. Phylogenetical and functional hypothesis has been proposed linking dietary flexibility and enzyme lability. All Passeriformes studied to date show the expected positive correlation between aminopeptidase-N and dietary protein but not for intestinal carbohydrases. Conversely,... |
