| It has been postulated that both digestive capacity and intestinal biochemical features are correlated to dietary habits in birds. Therefore, it would be expected to find biochemical constraint to hydrolyze sugars in those species, which predate exclusively on marine invertebrates. In vitro intestinal activities of these enzymes were studied in Cinclodes nigrofumosus (d' Orbigny) and Cinclodes patagonicus (Gmelling). Due to differences in dietary habits between species I predicted the lack of sucrase activity in C. nigrofumosus but not in C. patagonicus. Also, low activities of maltase would be expected in both species. On the other hand due to the considerable amount of proteins and trehalose present in preys, high activities of both trehalase and... |
