SLSC 398 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Short-Chain Fatty Acid, Microaerophile, Hindgut
Document Summary
Saliva has enzymes that break down cellulose and the cell wall. The gizzard is before the foregut and it crushes the cellulose. In the foregut more enzymes are pored on it and the cellulose is broke down into smaller chunks. The ph is changes from the front to the back to loosen the material and initiate the chemical breakdown of whatever is being injected. After the rst passage of food through the gut they cultivate the fungus that digest the cellulose completely and you get a cheese being farmed and they eat that. You excrete waste on one side and eat the other side that is created by the fungus. The termites that have a fungus compost are more e cient. The enzymes are called endoglucananase, they are enzymes that break the cellulose chain in the middle and there are exoglucanase which are in the handout and they break the cellulose chain from the end.
