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The gut bacterial community of mammals from marine and terrestrial habitats.

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Version 1 2016-12-05, 14:25
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-06, 11:39 authored by TM Nelson, TL Rogers, MV Brown
After birth, mammals acquire a community of bacteria in their gastro-intestinal tract, which harvests energy and provides nutrients for the host. Comparative studies of numerous terrestrial mammal hosts have identified host phylogeny, diet and gut morphology as primary drivers of the gut bacterial community composition. To date, marine mammals have been excluded from these comparative studies, yet they represent distinct examples of evolutionary history, diet and lifestyle traits. To provide an updated understanding of the gut bacterial community of mammals, we compared bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequence data generated from faecal material of 151 marine and terrestrial mammal hosts. This included 42 hosts from a marine habitat. When compared to terrestrial mammals, marine mammals clustered separately and displayed a significantly greater average relative abundance of the phylum Fusobacteria. The marine carnivores (Antarctic and Arctic seals) and the marine herbivore (dugong) possessed significantly richer gut bacterial community than terrestrial carnivores and terrestrial herbivores, respectively. This suggests that evolutionary history and dietary items specific to the marine environment may have resulted in a gut bacterial community distinct to that identified in terrestrial mammals. Finally we hypothesize that reduced marine trophic webs, whereby marine carnivores (and herbivores) feed directly on lower trophic levels, may expose this group to high levels of secondary metabolites and influence gut microbial community richness.

History

Journal

PloS one

Volume

8

Pagination

e83655-e83655

Location

United States

Open access

  • Yes

ISSN

1932-6203

eISSN

1932-6203

Language

eng

Publication classification

CN.1 Other journal article

Copyright notice

2013, Public Library of Science

Issue

12

Publisher

Public Library of Science