Abstract
The Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon) is a medium-size carnivore that, in Europe, is restricted to Iberia. The bio-ecology of this species remains to be elucidated in several dimensions, including gut microbiota that is nowadays recognized as a fundamental component of mammals. In this work, we investigated the gut microbiota of this herpestid by single-molecule real-time sequencing of twenty paired male (n = 10) and female (n = 10) intestinal samples. This culture-independent approach enabled microbial profiling based on 16S rDNA and investigation of taxonomical and functional features. The core gut microbiome of the adult subpopulation was dominated by Firmicutes, Fusobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria. Eight genera were uniquely found in adults and five in non-adults. When comparing gut bacterial communities across sex, four genera were exclusive of females and six uniquely found in males. Despite these compositional distinctions, alpha- and beta-diversity analyses showed no statistically significant differences across sex or between adult and non-adult specimens. However, when function was inferred, males presented a significantly higher abundance of amino acid and citrate cycle metabolic pathways, compared to the significant overrepresentation in females of galactose metabolic pathways. Additionally, adults exhibited a significantly higher abundance of cationic antimicrobial peptide resistance pathways, while non-adults bared a significant overrepresentation of two-component systems associated with antibiotic synthesis, flagellin and biofilm production, and chemotaxis control. This study adds new insights into the mongoose bio-ecology palette, highlighting taxonomical and functional microbiome dissimilarities across sex and age classes, possibly related to primary production resources and life-history traits that impact on behavior and diet.
Highlights
The bioecology of each mammal species is a conjugation of different domains, such as geographic range and habitat, diet, genetics, morpho-physiology, social behavior and gut microbiota, the latter of which has been progressively acknowledged as a fundamental component of mammal biology [1]
The Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon (Linnaeus, 1758)) is a carnivore species from the Herpestidae family with opportunistic feeding behavior and whose diet in the Mediterranean includes wild rabbit, other small mammals like rodents, reptiles, amphibians, birds, crayfish, eggs, and even carrion [2]. This species is mostly present in the African continent, and in the Mediterranean Middle East, Turkey, and the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) [3]
Female mongooses exhibited a significantly higher abundance of galactose metabolic pathways, normally performed by Bacteroides, which is usually overrepresented in female hosts. These findings suggest that the bacterial gut microbiome of the Egyptian mongoose is modulated by sex-specific strategies to produce energy
Summary
The bioecology of each mammal species is a conjugation of different domains, such as geographic range and habitat, diet, genetics, morpho-physiology, social behavior and gut microbiota, the latter of which has been progressively acknowledged as a fundamental component of mammal biology [1]. The Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon (Linnaeus, 1758)) is a carnivore species from the Herpestidae family with opportunistic feeding behavior and whose diet in the Mediterranean includes wild rabbit, other small mammals like rodents, reptiles, amphibians, birds, crayfish, eggs, and even carrion [2]. This species is mostly present in the African continent, and in the Mediterranean Middle East, Turkey, and the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) [3]. Ecological features of mongooses such as morpho- and stress-physiology, diet, body condition, or reproduction, have been unraveled in recent years [2], driven by the opportunity to explore a large array of specimen samples in Portugal, where it is a game species under the Portuguese hunting law [9]
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