Comparison of the fecal microbiota of two free-ranging Chinese subspecies of the leopard ( Panthera pardus ) using high-throughput sequencing

PeerJ

article

Siyu Han¹  Yu Guan¹  Hailong Dou²  Haitao Yang¹  Meng Yao¹  Jianping Ge¹  Limin Feng¹ 

[1] Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Observation and Research Station, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, State Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory for Conservation Ecology of Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, State Forestry and Grassland Administration Amur tiger and Amur leopard Monitoring and Research Center, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University;College of Life Sciences, Qufu Normal University

关键词: Amur leopard;    Gut microbiota;    Non-invasive;    16s rRNA gene;    High-throughput sequencing;    North Chinese leopard;    Free-ranging leopard in China;    Leopard conservation;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.6684

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

The analysis of gut microbiota using fecal samples provides a non-invasive approach to understand the complex interactions between host species and their intestinal bacterial community. However, information on gut microbiota for wild endangered carnivores is scarce. The goal of this study was to describe the gut microbiota of two leopard subspecies, the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) and North Chinese leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis). Fecal samples from the Amur leopard (n = 8) and North Chinese leopard (n = 13) were collected in Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park and Shanxi Tieqiaoshan Provincial Nature Reserve in China, respectively. The gut microbiota of leopards was analyzed via high-throughput sequencing of the V3–V4 region of bacterial 16S rRNA gene using the Life Ion S5™ XL platform. A total of 1,413,825 clean reads representing 4,203 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were detected. For Amur leopard samples, Firmicutes (78.4%) was the dominant phylum, followed by Proteobacteria (9.6%) and Actinobacteria (7.6%). And for the North Chinese leopard, Firmicutes (68.6%), Actinobacteria (11.6%) and Fusobacteria (6.4%) were the most predominant phyla. Clostridiales was the most diverse bacterial order with 37.9% for Amur leopard and 45.7% for North Chinese leopard. Based on the beta-diversity analysis, no significant difference was found in the bacterial community composition between the Amur leopard and North Chinese leopard samples. The current study provides the initial data about the composition and structure of the gut microbiota for wild Amur leopards and North Chinese leopards, and has laid the foundation for further investigations of the health, dietary preferences and physiological regulation of leopards.

【 授权许可】

CC BY