Gut microbiome shifts with urbanization and potentially facilitates a zoonotic pathogen in a wading bird

PLoS One. 2020 Mar 5;15(3):e0220926. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220926. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Microbial communities in the gastrointestinal tract influence many aspects of host health, including metabolism and susceptibility to pathogen colonization. These relationships and the environmental and individual factors that drive them are relatively unexplored for free-living wildlife. We quantified the relationships between urban habitat use, diet, and age with microbiome composition and diversity for 82 American white ibises (Eudocimus albus) captured along an urban gradient in south Florida and tested whether gut microbial diversity was associated with Salmonella enterica prevalence. Shifts in community composition were significantly associated with urban land cover and, to a lesser extent, diets higher in provisioned food. The diversity of genera was negatively associated with community composition associated with urban land cover, positively associated with age class, and negatively associated with Salmonella shedding. Our results suggest that shifts in both habitat use and diet for urban birds significantly alter gut microbial composition and diversity in ways that may influence health and pathogen susceptibility as species adapt to urban habitats.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Birds / physiology*
  • Diet / veterinary
  • Ecosystem
  • Gastrointestinal Microbiome*
  • Intestines / microbiology
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / metabolism
  • Salmonella enterica / genetics
  • Salmonella enterica / isolation & purification

Substances

  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S

Grants and funding

This work was funded by a grant from the NSF Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (DEB-1518611) to MM, EL, EL, AK, CNW, HCA, TE and SMH. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.