Rangeland Ecology & Management

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Herbivore response to anti-quality factors in forages
Author
Launchbaugh, K. L.
Provenza, F. D.
Pfister, J. A.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2001-07-01
Body

Plants possess a wide variety of compounds and growth forms that are termed "anti-quality" factors because they reduce forage value and deter grazing. Anti-quality attributes can reduce a plant's digestible nutrients and energy or yield toxic effects. Herbivores possess several adaptive mechanisms to lessen the impacts of anti-quality factors. First, herbivores graze selectively to limit consumption of potentially harmful plant compounds. Grazing animals rely on a sophisticated system to detect plant nutritional value or toxicity by relating the flavor of a plant to its positive or negative digestive consequences. Diet selection skills are enhanced by adaptive intake patterns that limit the deleterious effects of plant allelochemicals; these include cautious sampling of sample new foods, consuming a varied diet, and eating plants in a cyclic, intermittent, or carefully regulated fashion. Second, grazing animals possess internal systems that detoxify or tolerate ingested phytotoxins. Animals may eject toxic plant material quickly after ingestion, secrete substances in the mouth or gut to render allelochemicals inert, rely on rumen microbes to detoxify allelochemicals, absorb phytochemicals from the gut and detoxified them in body tissues, or develop a tolerance to the toxic effects of plant allelochemicals. Understanding the behavioral and metabolic abilities of herbivores suggests several livestock management practices to help animals contend with plant anti-quality characteristics. These practices include offering animals proper early life experiences, selecting the appropriate livestock species and individuals, breeding animals with desired attributes, and offering nutritional or pharmaceutical products to aid in digestion and detoxification. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020

Language
en
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Journal Issue/Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.2307/4003114
Additional Information
Launchbaugh, K. L., Provenza, F. D., & Pfister, J. A. (2001). Herbivore response to anti-quality factors in forages. Journal of Range Management, 54(4), 431-440.
IISN
0022-409X
OAI Identifier
oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/643891
Journal Volume
54
Journal Number
4
Journal Pages
431-440
Journal Name
Journal of Range Management
Keywords
allelochemicals
food intake
detoxification
animal husbandry
energy content
metabolism
flavor
toxicity
nutrient content
foraging
nutrient availability
tolerance
adaptation
animal behavior
selective grazing
herbivores
nutritive value
quality
literature reviews
grazing
forage
anti-quality
conditioned aversions
detoxification
diet selection
forage quality
foraging
grazing behavior
toxic plants