A Community Study Of Gut Microbes In Migratory Shorebirds

Animal gut microbes have attracted widespread attention as an international research hotspot in recent years.Migratory birds have many unique life history characteristics,such as long-distance flights between breeding sites,stopover sites,and wintering sites.The energy requirements and immunophysiological challenges in this process may affect the structure of the gut microbial community in birds.In this study,we use 16S r RNA sequencing to analyze the specific characteristics of the gut microbiome in 19 species(Charadriidae,Scolopacidae)and the factors that affect the structure of the gut microbial community(such as host phylogeny,habitat environment).The composition,pedigree,diversity,differences and driving forces of the gut microbes in shorebirds are discussed.The gut microbiome in shorebird is highly diverse among different hosts.According to relative abundance,the dominant flora in shorebird gut microbial community are:Proteobacteria(37.46%),Firmicutes(22.92%),Bacteroidetes(5.02%),Cyanobacteria(4.32%)and Chloroflexi(4.28%).These five dominant bacteria phyla account for about 80%of the total abundance of all bacteria.LEf Se results show that there are significant differences in the abundance of the 9 shorebird species hosts in65 bacterial families.Then,there are significant differences in the diversity of the gut communities of the 9 shorebird species described by the Shannon index(P<0.05),reflecting the differences in the gut communities of shorebirds among different host species.However,at the level of the two host families,there is no significant difference in the abundance and diversity of the intestinal bacterial communities,which also reflects the similarity of the intestinal microbial communities between closely related species.The host phylogenetic status is the main driving force for the structure of the intestinal microbial community of birds.The results of Adonis multivariate analysis of variance show that the phylogenetic status of the host determines 11%of the intestinal bacterial components(R~2=0.11,P<0.001).This indicates that the phylogenetic status of the host is one of the important factors affecting the structure of the intestinal microbial community of birds.At the same time,analysis based on unweighted PCo A also shows that the intestinal flora of the 9 shorebird species in the plover has obvious clustering at the host species level.The intestinal microbes of the same species are similar in flora composition,but they are different from the gut microbes of other shorebird species.There is a certain spatial heterogeneity in the surface and gut microbes in shorebirds.First,the results of the Heatmap respectively show the pedigree,abundance and similarity clusters of 6 shorebird species body surface and gut microbes.Secondly,the LEf Se results show that there are differences in the abundance of bacteria on the body surface and gut microbes of the 6 shorebird species at the level of different numbers of families.Next,the Shannon index is used to describe the differences in the degree on diversity of bacterial communities(6shorebird species)in different parts.The results show that with the exception of Charadrius alexandrinus,the body surface and intestinal bacterial communities of the other five shorebird species have the same degree of diversity.Charadrius alexandrinus results reveal a certain degree of error in the previous research method of using feces and/or cloacal bacteria to approximate the intestinal bacteria as the host.Finally,based on unweighted PCo A and NMDS analysis,there are certain differences in the microbial composition among the different parts of the 6 shorebird species.This reflects the spatial pattern of the intestinal microbes in shorebirds.Bird microbes show flexible adaptability to the habitat environment.(1)After dividing all host samples(245 skin samples,intestinal samples)into two groups according to the sampling habitat,perform the same analysis as in the previous paragraph.The results show that there are significant differences in the abundance of3 and 4 bacterial branches in the host body surface and gut microbes in the Tiaozini and Xiaoyangkou regions,respectively.There are also significant differences in the degree of host microbial diversification and coordinate clustering between the two groups.(2)Divide all 24 environmental samples(water,soil)and host samples into three groups,and perform the same analysis as the previous paragraph.The results indicate that the soil has the highest degree of microbial diversity,and it is significantly different from the water and host microbial diversity.At the same time,there is an obvious divergence in the coordinate analysis between the host and the environment,indicating that the environment can change the composition and abundance of the host microorganism to a certain extent.However,birds also have certain resistance to opportunistic flora from the environment,so as to ensure the stability of their own microbial communities.