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Abstract
The avian gut microbiota plays an important role in shaping the health of its host. However, knowledge of gut bacteria in birds lags behind that of other animals. In this study, we investigated the gut bacterial communities of lesser white‐fronted geese (Anser erythropus) wintering at Shengjin Lake and Caizi Lake, China, using high‐throughput sequencing (Illumina MiSeq). Altogether, 1,053,624 high‐quality sequences and 4,405 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were acquired from 30 fecal samples (15 per lake). The OTUs represented eight phyla and 17 classes from the Caizi Lake samples and seven phyla and 16 classes from the Shengjin Lake samples. Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were the dominant phyla. The spatial distance and the Chao1, Simpson, and Shannon indices showed that the alpha diversity differed significantly between the samples from both lakes. The phylogenetic tree and heatmap analyses showed that all the Caizi Lake samples were clustered together and all the Shengjin Lake samples were clustered together. These findings suggest that diet may be an important driver of gut microbial community structure in the birds from each lake, and the obvious differentiation in their gut microbial structures may indicate that the bacteria are highly sensitive to food sources at both lakes.
Highlights
Trillions of microbes inhabit the avian gut and form complex and diverse microbial communities (Wang et al, 2019)
Avian gut microbiota plays an important role in the host's physiology by contributing to functions such as host development, nutrient assimilation, vitamin synthesis, immune homeostasis, bile acid and sterol metabolism, and diseases in both nonhuman animals and humans alike (Ei, Dinan, & Cryan, 2014; Fukuda & Ohno, 2014; Kau, Ahern, Griffin, Goodman, & Gordon, 2011; McFallNgai, Hadfield, Bosch, & Carey, 2013; O'Mahony, Clarke, Borre, & Dinan, 2015; Xiang et al, 2019; Zhao, Zhou, Dong, Cheng, & Song, 2017)
Wild waterbirds remain less studied than other birds, and knowledge about gut microbiota in waterbirds of the same species from different geographic populations is scant, for the gut microbiota from long-distance migratory lesser white-fronted geese (Anser erythropus) at their main wintering sites of Caizi and Shengjin Lakes along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in eastern China (Yang et al, 2016)
Summary
Trillions of microbes inhabit the avian gut and form complex and diverse microbial communities (Wang et al, 2019). Wild waterbirds remain less studied than other birds, and knowledge about gut microbiota in waterbirds of the same species from different geographic populations is scant, for the gut microbiota from long-distance migratory lesser white-fronted geese (Anser erythropus) at their main wintering sites of Caizi and Shengjin Lakes along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in eastern China (Yang et al, 2016). In China, lesser whitefronted geese primarily winter at Caizi and Shengjin Lakes along the middle and lower Yangtze River floodplains. Caizi Lake (30.75°–30.97°N, 117.00°–117.15°E) and Shengjin Lake (30.25°–30.50°N, 116.92°–117.25°E) are shallow lakes in the middle and lower Yangtze River floodplains Both lakes, which are designated internationally important wetlands, contain abundant aquatic resources and are important stopover and wintering grounds for many East Asian–Australasian migratory geese (Chen et al, 2011). High-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA V3–V4 region and statistical analyses were performed to help describe the bacterial community structure and composition, and to determine whether the gut bacterial compositions exhibit the same patterns between the geese at the two wintering locations
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