Captivity reduces diversity and shifts composition of the Brown Kiwi microbiome
Open Access
- 8 July 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Animal Microbiome
- Vol. 3 (1), 1-8
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s42523-021-00109-0
Abstract
Captive rearing is often critical for animals that are vulnerable to extinction in the wild. However, few studies have investigated the extent to which captivity impacts hosts and their gut microbiota, despite mounting evidence indicating that host health is affected by gut microbes. We assessed the influence of captivity on the gut microbiome of the Brown Kiwi (Apteryx mantelli), a flightless bird endemic to New Zealand. We collected wild (n = 68) and captive (n = 38) kiwi feces at seven sites on the north island of New Zealand. Using bacterial 16 S rRNA and fungal ITS gene profiling, we found that captivity was a significant predictor of the kiwi gut bacterial and fungal communities. Captive samples had lower microbial diversity and different composition when compared to wild samples. History of coccidiosis, a gut parasite primarily affecting captive kiwi, showed a marginally significant effect. Our findings demonstrate captivity’s potential to shape the Brown Kiwi gut microbiome, that warrant further investigation to elucidate the effects of these differences on health.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (Strategic Science Investment Fund))
- Marsden Fund (17-MAU-154)
- Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (482 C09X1609)
- Birds New Zealand (Birds New Zealand)
This publication has 39 references indexed in Scilit:
- Two New Computational Methods for Universal DNA Barcoding: A Benchmark Using Barcode Sequences of Bacteria, Archaea, Animals, Fungi, and Land PlantsPLOS ONE, 2013
- phyloseq: An R Package for Reproducible Interactive Analysis and Graphics of Microbiome Census DataPLOS ONE, 2013
- The gut microbiota — masters of host development and physiologyNature Reviews Microbiology, 2013
- Animal Behavior and the MicrobiomeScience, 2012
- Enteric coccidiosis in the brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli)Zeitschrift für Parasitenkunde, 2012
- High-Coverage ITS Primers for the DNA-Based Identification of Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes in Environmental SamplesPLOS ONE, 2012
- Ultra-high-throughput microbial community analysis on the Illumina HiSeq and MiSeq platformsThe ISME Journal, 2012
- Cost-effective, high-throughput DNA sequencing libraries for multiplexed target captureGenome Research, 2012
- Olfaction in birds: a closer look at the kiwi (Apterygidae)Journal of Avian Biology, 2010
- Mycorrhizal effectiveness of Rhizopogon spores recovered from faecal pellets of small forest-dwelling mammalsMycological Research, 2002