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Conditioned Flavor Aversion: A Mechanism For Goats To Avoid Condensed Tannins In Blackbrush, Frederick D. Provenza, Elizabeth A. Burritt, T. P. Clausen, J. P. Bryant, P. B. Reichardt, Roberto A. Distel
Conditioned Flavor Aversion: A Mechanism For Goats To Avoid Condensed Tannins In Blackbrush, Frederick D. Provenza, Elizabeth A. Burritt, T. P. Clausen, J. P. Bryant, P. B. Reichardt, Roberto A. Distel
Behavioral Education for Human, Animal, Vegetation, and Ecosystem Management (BEHAVE)
It has been hypothesized that herbivores instinctively avoid tannin-containing plant parts in response to the adverse effects of tannins on forage digestion. However, we found that goats learned to avoid condensed tannins (CTs) from blackbrush current season's growth by associating the flavor of foods containing CTs with aversive postingestive consequences. The aversive consequences experienced by goats apparently are not related to digestion inhibition and may depend on the structure of CTs and on how CTs are bound with other cell constituents. These observations suggest several areas of inquiry related to the interaction between CTs and herbivores. A better understanding of …