Study On The Diversity Of Intestinal Flora Of Qinling Takin

The takin(Budorcas taxicolor)is a large Himalayan ungulate in the family Bovidae.The takin is classified into 4 subspecies based on distinct differences in physical characteristics and geographic location,specifically the golden takin(B.t.bedfordi),the Mishmi takin(B.t.taxicolor),the Sichuan takin(B.t.Tibetana),and the Bhutan takin(B.t.whitei).The golden takin and the Sichuan takin are endemic subspecies of China.Compared to the other three subspecies,the golden takin is largest and is thought to possess the most beautiful fur.Furthermore,relative to the other subspecies,the golden takin is the most rare which less than 5000 around the world.In recent years,due to the worsening of the natural environment,the influence of human activities,the habitats losing and hunting activities,the populations of takins fell sharply.Therefore,the habitat protection and the recovery of the population of this rare species urgently need to be solved?The gut microbiota of mammals is a complex ecosystem which is essential for maintaining gut homeostasis and the host's health.With the development of sequencing technologies,the high throughput sequencing allowed us to gain a deeper insight into the bacterial structure and diversity.In our study,we selected precious the golden takin as the research object,and tried to reveal the intestinal micro ecology of the golden takins through high-throughput sequencing method to study their intestinal diversity.We characterized the fecal microbiota of nine healthy golden takins using high throughput sequencing of the 16 S rRNA genes V3–V4 hypervariable regions.In our research,we obtained 670356 effective tags and divided the sequences into 12992 OTUs with 97% similarity.Our results show that the gut microbiota community comprised 21 phyla,40 classes,62 orders,96 families,and 216 genera.Firmicutes(67.59%)was the most abundant phylum,followed by Bacteroidetes(23.57%)and Proteobacteria(2.37%).Additionally,Ruminococcaceae was the predominant family,with an abundance of 49.61%,followed by Rikenellaceae(10.93%)and Lachnospiraceae(6.41%).In addition,distinct bacterial communities which may be caused by the change of diet quality were observed in the spring and winter in terms of both membership and structure.In the spring,the golden takin maintained higher richness than in the winter(P<0.05),and the community diversity and evenness was not significantly different according to t-test.These findings provides theoretical basis regarding the gut microbiota of golden takins and may offer new insights that will allow us to protect this endangered species.