Starvation as a stress factor influencing the metabolism of a tropical intertidal gastropodMorula granulata (Duclos)

Abstract

The snail Morula granulata (Duclos) survived the starvation stress over a period of 30 days but 50% mortality occurred on the 70th day. The changes in the level and content of different biochemical constituents viz carbohydrates, glycogen, Cree sugars, protein, total ninhydrin positive substances and lipids were investigated in foot, gonad digestive gland complex and viscera of the animal at intervals of 10 days up to 70 days. All these biochemical constituents (both level and content) were Cound to decrease with the period of starvation showing their utilisation except total ninhydrin positive substances which exhibited an increase. OC all the 3 tissues, the gonad digestive gland complex was affected most during starvation. 'Lipid-oriented' metabolism was observed in this animal showing maximum utilisation of lipids during starvation. Respiratory studies revealed a decreased pattern of oxygen consumption with increasing period or starvation when calculated per snaii or per tissue weight The recalculated intercept values (a) also showed a decreasing trend when exposed to starvation.

Comparison of Energy Budget of Cockroach Nymph (Hemimetabolous) and Hornworm (Holometabolous) under Food Restriction

“…Most studies on ectothermic animals' energy budget under low food supply focus on non-growing animals [34][35][36][37][38][39][40] or the growth and metabolism of a population, instead of individuals [41,42]. However, limited data on growing ectothermic animals support our hypothesis.…”