The price of survival: comparative adaptation to high altitudes between yaks and cattle
Lang Tan, Xiaojing Liu, Yonggui Ma, Jinfen Yang, Qunying Zhang, Jianbo Zhang, Binqiang Bai, Heng Ma, Ru Meng, Allan Degen, Nikola Palevich, Peijun Shi, Lizhuang Hao · 2026
Read The price of survival: comparative adaptation to high altitudes between yaks and cattle by Lang Tan, Xiaojing Liu, Yonggui Ma, Jinfen Yang, Qunying Zhang, Jianbo Zhang, Binqiang Bai, Heng Ma, Ru Meng, Allan Degen, Nikola Palevich, Peijun Shi, Lizhuang Hao (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13466131.txt.
Description
Tan and a large team compared gut microbes and digestion in yaks and cattle in 2026 on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Yaks thrive where air is thin; cattle are their lowland cousins. Animals were studied at 2,200 meters and at 3,800 meters. The team profiled the rumen, the fermentation vat where microbes pre-digest food, covering microbe mix, protein output, ammonia, and a liver stress marker.
Yaks rewired their rumen for energy scarcity. Their microbes shifted toward breaking down amino acids and making long-chain fats, squeezing more fuel from less. The bargain had a price. Microbial protein production fell by nearly half under thin air. Ammonia in the rumen more than doubled, and the liver stress marker rose by about a fifth. Cattle showed no comparable trick. The study frames high-altitude survival as a trade: richer energy now, paid for with liver strain over time.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Lang Tan, Xiaojing Liu, Yonggui Ma, Jinfen Yang, Qunying Zhang, Jianbo Zhang, Binqiang Bai, Heng Ma, Ru Meng, Allan Degen, Nikola Palevich, Peijun Shi, Lizhuang Hao |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 48 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |