Abstract
The existence of man-made facilities such as pasture fences makes the grassland ecosystem fragmented and endangers the survival of local wild animals. The Mongolian gazelle is highly sensitive to hunting and habitat destruction, and is one of the most threatened artiodactyls in Eurasia. It provides a critical model to studying gut microbiota under fragmented habitats. Therefore, we applied metagenomics sequencing to analyze the gut microbiota communities and functions of Mongolian gazelle under fragmented habitats. The results demonstrated that there were no significant differences in gut microbial communities between the different groups at both the phylum and genus level. The functional analyses showed that the Mongolian gazelle in fragmented habitat had a stronger ability to degrade naphthalene, but their ability to absorb carbohydrates was weaker. This study provided fundamental information about the gut microbiota of Mongolian gazelle, and we recommend reducing habitat fragmentation to better protect the Mongolian gazelle.
Highlights
The gut microbiota of mammals is frequently affected by many factors, including dietary choices, phylogeny, and environmental changes (Turnbaugh et al, 2009; Yatsunenko et al, 2012; Schnorr et al, 2014; Clemente et al, 2015)
From the box-plot diagram, we found that the number of genes was higher in B group compared with that in H group (Figure 1D)
From the first level of CAZy classification, we found that most of the genes were annotated to the three functional configurations: glycoside hydrolases (GHs), glycosyltransferases (GTs), and carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs) (Figure 4B)
Summary
The gut microbiota of mammals is frequently affected by many factors, including dietary choices, phylogeny, and environmental changes (Turnbaugh et al, 2009; Yatsunenko et al, 2012; Schnorr et al, 2014; Clemente et al, 2015). Ruminants rely on the gut microbiota to harness energy via the fermentation of dietary material (Thoetkiattikul et al, 2013). The gut microbiota plays an important role in the nutritional ecology of ruminants (Hu X. et al, 2018). Recent studies indicate that anthropogenic disturbance can cause major changes in the composition of the gut microbiota (Barelli et al, 2020). Populations of both the black howler monkey and Udzungwa red colobus have been shown to have lower gut microbiota diversity in fragmented habitats compared with intact habitats (Amato et al, 2013; Barelli et al, 2015). Given that the gut microbiota plays a crucial role in host health (Fung et al, 2017), understanding the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on host’s gut microbiota is critical for developing effective conservation strategies for endangered species (Stumpf et al, 2016)
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