Microbiomes in the insectivorous bat species Mops condylurus rapidly converge in captivity
Open Access
- 20 March 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 15 (3), e0223629
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223629
Abstract
Bats are well known reservoir hosts for RNA and DNA viruses. The use of captive bats in research has intensified over the past decade as researchers aim to examine the virus-reservoir host interface. In this study, we investigated the effects of captivity on the fecal bacterial microbiome of an insectivorous microbat, Mops condylurus, a species that roosts in close proximity to humans and has likely transmitted viral infections to humans. Using amplicon 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we characterized changes in fecal bacterial community composition for individual bats directly at the time of capture and again after six weeks in captivity. We found that microbial community richness by measure of the number of observed operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in bat feces increases in captivity. Importantly, we found the similarity of microbial community structures of fecal microbiomes between different bats to converge during captivity. We propose a six week-acclimatization period prior to carrying out infection studies or other research influenced by the microbiome composition, which may be advantageous to reduce variation in microbiome composition and minimize biological variation inherent to in vivo experimental studies.This publication has 34 references indexed in Scilit:
- Investigating the zoonotic origin of the West African Ebola epidemicEMBO Molecular Medicine, 2014
- Enteric bacteria promote human and mouse norovirus infection of B cellsScience, 2014
- Captivity results in disparate loss of gut microbial diversity in closely related hostsConservation Physiology, 2014
- Ecological and Economic Importance of Bats (Order Chiroptera)ISRN Biodiversity, 2013
- Evaluation of general 16S ribosomal RNA gene PCR primers for classical and next-generation sequencing-based diversity studiesNucleic Acids Research, 2012
- Intestinal Microbiota Promote Enteric Virus Replication and Systemic PathogenesisScience, 2011
- Experimental infection of serotine bats (Eptesicus serotinus) with European bat lyssavirus type 1aJournal of General Virology, 2009
- UniFrac: a New Phylogenetic Method for Comparing Microbial CommunitiesApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2005
- Hierarchical Grouping to Optimize an Objective FunctionJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1963
- Hierarchical Grouping to Optimize an Objective FunctionJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1963