Definition: consumers specializing in labile organic matter, which is easily metabolized; usually low molecular weight compounds, eg: simple sugars or proteins. For instance, metabolic scaling puts intense selective pressure on small organisms to ingest foods rich in labile organic matter; the residence time in a very short gut is too brief for enzymatic hydrolysis, so they specialize in rapidly metabolizable compounds.
Definition: consumers specializing in labile organic matter, which is easily metabolized; usually low molecular weight compounds, eg: simple sugars or proteins. For instance, metabolic scaling puts intense selective pressure on small organisms to ingest foods rich in labile organic matter; the residence time in a very short gut is too brief for enzymatic hydrolysis, so they specialize in rapidly metabolizable compounds.
