Fecal microbiota transplantation provides new insight into wildlife conservation

Abstract

Environment, diet, and host phylogeny are the main factors that shape the gut microbiota of humans and animals. Gut microbial communities of captive animals are often drastically altered by disease or anthropogenic activities. These changes in the microbial community profoundly influence animal fitness. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) offers enormous potential to mend a disturbed gut microbiota. In addition, differences generally exist between the gut microbiotas of wild and captive animals. FMT can be used to improve the gut bacterial community structure of candidate endangered animals before releasing them into the wild. However, there are few reviews on the application of FMT in wildlife conservation. This review discusses the application of FMT for the conservation of endangered wildlife. First, the necessity for the application of FMT to conservation biology is introduced; second, the potential benefits of FMT techniques for endangered species conservation are discussed; third, successful cases where FMT was applied for the protection of endangered animals are listed; finally, future research directions and concerns with regard to FMT for the conservation of endangered wildlife are discussed. Although the attempts to perform FMT for conservation biology still remain preliminary, FMT has already indicated an enormous potential for the improvement of both the management and conservation of wildlife. We hope this review can promote future studies focused on the application of FMT for the preservation of vulnerable species.