Abstract
BackgroundAnimal skin and gut microbiomes are important components of host fitness. However, the processes that shape the microbiomes of wildlife are poorly understood, particularly with regard to exposure to environmental contaminants. We used 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to quantify how exposure to radionuclides impacts the skin and gut microbiota of a small mammal, the bank vole Myodes glareolus, inhabiting areas within and outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), Ukraine.ResultsSkin microbiomes of male bank voles were more diverse than females. However, the most pronounced differences in skin microbiomes occurred at a larger spatial scale, with higher alpha diversity in the skin microbiomes of bank voles from areas within the CEZ, whether contaminated by radionuclides or not, than in the skin microbiomes of animals from uncontaminated locations outside the CEZ, near Kyiv. Similarly, irrespective of the level of radionuclide contamination, skin microbiome communities (beta diversity) showed greater similarities within the CEZ, than to the areas near Kyiv. Hence, bank vole skin microbiome communities are structured more by geography than the level of soil radionuclides. This pattern presents a contrast with bank vole gut microbiota, where microbiomes could be strikingly similar among distant (~ 80 km of separation), uncontaminated locations, and where differences in microbiome community structure were associated with the level of radioactivity. We also found that the level of (dis)similarity between the skin and gut microbiome communities from the same individuals was contingent on the potential for exposure to radionuclides.ConclusionsBank vole skin and gut microbiomes have distinct responses to similar environmental cues and thus are structured at different spatial scales. Our study shows how exposure to environmental pollution can affect the relationship between a mammalian host’s skin and gut microbial communities, potentially homogenising the microbiomes in habitats affected by pollution.
Highlights
Animal skin and gut microbiomes are important components of host fitness
Bank vole SK microbiome composition We used 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing to characterise SK microbiomes of 157 wild caught bank voles from areas that differed in the level of environmental radionuclide contamination (Fig. 1)
We identified 1928 unique operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from 15 bacterial phyla
Summary
Animal skin and gut microbiomes are important components of host fitness. The composition of human SK microbiome may be affected, for example, by geographic location and exposure to certain habitats [6,7,8,9], individuality and body site [10], host age and sex [8, 11, 12]. GI microbiome communities are affected by factors such as geography, host age [19] and environment [20], but with a clear role for host diet in shaping microbiomes of humans [21, 22] and animals [23,24,25].
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