Abstract
Musk deer (Moschus spp.) is a globally endangered species due to excessive hunting and habitat fragmentation. Captive breeding of musk deer can efficiently relieve the hunting pressure and contribute to the conservation of the wild population and musk supply. However, its effect on the gut microbiota of musk deer is unclear. Recent studies have indicated that gut microbiota is associated with host health and its environmental adaption, influenced by many factors. Herein, high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was used based on 262 fecal samples from forest musk deer (M. berezovskii) (FMD) and 90 samples from alpine musk deer (M. chrysogaster) (AMD). We sought to determine whether seasonal variation can affect the structure and function of gut microbiota in musk deer. The results demonstrated that FMD and AMD had higher α-diversity of gut microbiota in the cold season than in the warm season, suggesting that season change can affect gut microbiota diversity in musk deer. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) also revealed significant seasonal differences in the structure and function of gut microbiota in AMD and FMD. Particularly, phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes significantly dominated the 352 fecal samples from captive FMD and AMD. The relative abundance of Firmicutes and the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes were significantly decreased in summer than in spring and substantially increased in winter than in summer. In contrast, the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes showed opposite results. Furthermore, dominant bacterial genera and main metabolic functions of gut microbiota in musk deer showed significant seasonal differences. Overall, the abundance of main gut microbiota metabolic functions in FMD was significantly higher in the cold season. WGCNA analysis indicated that OTU6606, OTU5027, OTU7522, and OTU3787 were at the core of the network and significantly related with the seasonal variation. These results indicated that the structure and function in the gut microbiota of captive musk deer vary with seasons, which is beneficial to the environmental adaptation and the digestion and metabolism of food. This study provides valuable insights into the healthy captive breeding of musk deer and future reintroduction programs to recover wild populations.
Highlights
Musk deer (Moschus spp.), the only extant genus of the family Moschidae, consists of seven species and are widely found in forests and mountains in Asia (Yang et al, 2003; Jiang et al, 2020)
This study aimed to (i) explore the composition and differences in the gut microbiota of both musk deer in different seasons; (ii) analyze the core microbiota and its metabolic functions, and their seasonal difference; and (iii) construct a weighed co-occurrence network of gut microbiota for identifying modules of co-occurring taxa and hub operational taxonomic units (OTUs) significantly related with the seasonal variation
A heat map analysis based on identifiable bacterial genera with the relative abundance of top30 showed that the relative abundance of the genera Christensenellaceae R7 group (13.64%), UCG 005 (10.44%), and Bacteroides (8.46%) was higher than 5%
Summary
Musk deer (Moschus spp.), the only extant genus of the family Moschidae, consists of seven species and are widely found in forests and mountains in Asia (Yang et al, 2003; Jiang et al, 2020). Six species of genus Moschus are found in China, among which the forest musk deer (FMD, M. berezovskii) and the alpine musk deer (AMD, M. chrysogaster) are the most widely distributed and have the highest wild and captive population (Fan et al, 2018). They inhabit high-altitude coniferous forests or broad-leaved forests (Wang and Harris, 2015), alpine shrub meadow, and mountain forest grassland zone (Harris, 2016) in central and southwestern China, with some overlapping areas. Diseases are the most significant constraints on population growth, breeding scale, and musk secretion (Zhao et al, 2011; Zhang et al, 2019)
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