Abstract
Bifidobacteria, which commonly inhabit the primate gut, are beneficial contributors to host wellbeing. Anatomical differences and natural habitat allow an arrangement of primates into two main parvorders; New World monkeys (NWM) and Old World monkeys (OWM). The number of newly described bifidobacterial species is clearly elevated in NWM. This corresponds to our finding that bifidobacteria were the dominant group of cultivated gut anaerobes in NWM, while their numbers halved in OWM and were often replaced by Clostridiaceae with sarcina morphology. We examined an extended MALDI-TOF MS database as a potential identification tool for rapid screening of bifidobacterial distribution in captive primates. Bifidobacterial isolates of NWM were assigned mainly to species of primate origin, while OWM possessed typically multi-host bifidobacteria. Moreover, bifidobacterial counts reflected the feed specialization of captive primates decreasing from frugivore-insectivores, gummivore-insectivores, frugivore-folivores to frugivore-omnivores. Amplicon sequencing analysis supported this trend with regards to the inverse ratio of Actinobacteria and Firmicutes. In addition, a significantly higher diversity of the bacterial population in OWM was found. The evolution specialization of primates seems to be responsible for Bifidobacterium abundance and species occurrence. Balanced microbiota of captive primates could be supported by optimized prebiotic and probiotic stimulation based on the primate host.
Highlights
Bifidobacteria, which commonly inhabit the primate gut, are beneficial contributors to host wellbeing
A similar statistically significant trend was found in colony forming units cultivated on WPS-MUP medium intended for bifidobacteria that reached 8.91 ± 1.38 log CFU g-1 in the New World monkeys (NWM) compared to 7.02 ± 0.93 log CFU g-1 in the Old World monkeys (OWM) (t(50) = 5.87, p = 3.50e-07)
A notably greater statistically significant difference was detected between primate parvorders on more selective WSP-NORF medium with bifidobacterial counts of 8.57 ± 2.13 log CFU g-1 for the NWM and 4.32 ± 2.04 log CFU g-1 for the OWM (Z = 5.17, p = 2.38e-07)
Summary
Bifidobacteria, which commonly inhabit the primate gut, are beneficial contributors to host wellbeing. Primates consume a wide range of plants and animal tissues and possess a variety of dietary specializations based on the proportion of individual dietary components (one type of feed component is dominating only), such as generalist feeders or omnivores, e.g. C ercopithecines[15,16,17,18]. If there is a lack of fruit, these primates consume various feed reaching from plants, nectar, seeds to insects or small vertebrates Such a feeding type can be described as frugivore-omnivore. If the second major component alongside fruit consists of insects, primates are classified as frugivores-insectivores (tamarins)[26,27,28,29,30] Exudates are another important nutritious feed apart from fruit and animal prey. Amato et al.[39] points out the seasonality that is one of the natural phenomena of wild primate diet, which results in a seasonal variation of the gut microbiome
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