The fecal bacterial microbiome of the Kuhl's pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus kuhlii) reflects landscape anthropogenic pressure
Lobato-Bailón, Lourdes (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals)
García-Ulloa, Manuel (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
Santos, Andrés (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
Guixé, David (Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya)
Camprodon, Jordi (Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya)
Florensa-Rius, Xavier (Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya)
Molleda, Raúl (Asociación Naturalista MUR)
Manzano, Robert (Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya)
Puig Ribas, Maria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals)
Espunyes, Johan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals)
Dias-Alves, Andrea (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals)
Marco, Ignasi (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals)
Migura-Garcia, Lourdes (Unitat mixta d'investigació IRTA-UAB en Sanitat Animal. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)
Martinez-Urtaza, Jaime (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
Cabezón Ponsoda, Óscar (Unitat mixta d'investigació IRTA-UAB en Sanitat Animal. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)

Date:	2023
Abstract:	Anthropogenic disturbance has the potential to negatively affect wildlife health by altering food availability and diet composition, increasing the exposure to agrochemicals, and intensifying the contact with humans, domestic animals, and their pathogens. However, the impact of these factors on the fecal microbiome composition of wildlife hosts and its link to host health modulation remains barely explored. Here we investigated the composition of the fecal bacterial microbiome of the insectivorous bat Kuhl's pipistrelle (Pipistrellus kuhlii) dwelling in four environmental contexts with different levels of anthropogenic pressure. We analyzed their microbiome composition, structure and diversity through full-length 16S rRNA metabarcoding using the nanopore long-read sequencer MinION™. We hypothesized that the bacterial community structure of fecal samples would vary across the different scenarios, showing a decreased diversity and richness in samples from disturbed ecosystems. The fecal microbiomes of 31 bats from 4 scenarios were sequenced. A total of 4,829,302 reads were obtained with a taxonomic assignment percentage of 99. 9% at genus level. Most abundant genera across all scenarios were Enterococcus, Escherichia/Shigella, Bacillus and Enterobacter. Alpha diversity varied significantly between the four scenarios (p < 0. 05), showing the lowest Shannon index in bats from urban and intensive agriculture landscapes, while the highest alpha diversity value was found in near pristine landscapes. Beta diversity obtained by Bray-Curtis distance showed weak statistical differentiation of bacterial taxonomic profiles among scenarios. Furthermore, core community analysis showed that 1,293 genera were shared among localities. Differential abundance analyses showed that the highest differentially abundant taxa were found in near pristine landscapes, with the exception of the family Alcaligenaceae, which was also overrepresented in urban and intensive agriculture landscapes. This study suggests that near pristine and undisturbed landscapes could promote a more resilient gut microbiome in wild populations of P. kuhlii. These results highlight the potential of the fecal microbiome as a non-invasive bioindicator to assess insectivorous bats' health and as a key element of landscape conservation strategies. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10. 1186/s42523-023-00229-9.
Grants:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2020PANDE00028
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Anthropogenic disturbance ; Chiroptera ; Wildlife ; Conservation ; Health indicator ; Nanopore sequencing ; MinION ; 16S rRNA
Published in:	Animal Microbiome, Vol. 5 (february 2023) , ISSN 2524-4671

DOI: 10.1186/s42523-023-00229-9
PMID: 36739423

14 p, 3.5 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA-IRTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles