Having been introduced to the northern edge of Asian tropics, the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) has become deciduous in this climate with seasonal drought and cold stresses. To determine its internal nutrient strategy during leaf senescence and deciduous periods, we investigated mature leaf and senescent leaf nutrients, water-soluble soil nutrients and characteristics of soil microbiota in n...

Low nutritive value and suitability of barley as a feedstuff for broilers is mainly due to its non-starch polysaccharides. An experiment was carried out to evaluate if diets high in barley alter the mechanisms responsible for the absorption of nutrients across the intestinal epithelium of broilers, using D-xylose absorption test. Thirty, 14-d old male broiler chicks (Ross 308) with similar body...

Absorption efficiency (AD, approximate digestibility, assimilation efficiency) of various macronutrients and conversion of absorbed nutrients to biomass (ECD) were compared among the two types of flightless morph and the flight-capable morph of the cricket, Gryllus firmus. No biologically significant phenotypic or genetic difference in AD for carbohydrate, protein or lipid was observed among mo...

The normal gut is adapted to intermittent feeding with complex macromolecular substrates of low sodium content. The high permeability of the upper small intestine to sodium, together with sodium rich saliva and pancreaticobiliary secretions results in large sodium fluxes into the lumen. These substantial sodium influxes are matched by equally large effluxes from the ileum and proximal colon, wh...

Malnutrition including vitamin A and iron deficiency and parasitic diseases have a strikingly similar geographical distribution with the same people experiencing both insults together for much of their lives. Parasitic infections are thought to contribute to child malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency through subtle reduction in digestion and absorption, chronic inflammation and loss of nut...