Comparative gut microbiota of 59 Neotropical bird species

Frontiers in Microbiology

Cesar eSanchez¹  Sarah M Hird¹  Robb T Brumfield¹  Bryan C Carstens² 

[1] Louisiana State University;Ohio State University;University of California Davis;

关键词: evolution;    Gut Microbiota;    V6;    host-associated microbiota;    Neotropical birds;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmicb.2015.01403

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The gut microbiota of vertebrates are essential to host health. Most non-model systems, however, lack even a basic description of natural gut microbiota biodiversity. Here, we sampled 116 intestines from 59 Neotropical bird species and used the V6 region of the 16S rRNA molecule as a microbial fingerprint (average coverage per bird ~80,000 reads). A core microbiota of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria was identified, as well as several gut-associated genera. We tested 18 categorical variables associated with each bird for significant correlation to the gut microbiota; host taxonomic categories were most frequently significant and explained the most variation. Ecological variables (e.g., diet, foraging stratum) were also frequently significant but explained less variation. Little evidence is found for a significant influence of geographic space. Finally, we suggest that microbial sampling during field collection of organisms would propel biological understanding of evolutionary history and ecological significance of host-associated microbiota.

【 授权许可】

Unknown