Fecal bacterial diversity of human‐habituated wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Mahale Mountains National Park, Western Tanzania

Abstract

Although the intestinal flora of chimpanzees has not been studied, insight into this dynamic environment can be obtained through studies on their feces. We analyzed fecal samples from human-habituated, wild chimpanzees at Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania, and compared microbial community profiles to determine if members of the same social group were similar. Between July and December 2007, we collected fresh fecal samples from 12 individuals: four juveniles, four adolescents, and four adults, including three parent-offspring pairs. Each sample was analyzed using Terminal-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism of amplified 16S rRNA genes. Twelve different profiles were generated, having between 1 and 15 Terminal-Restriction Fragments (T-RFs). Overall, a total of 23 different T-RFs were produced. Putative assignments of T-RFs corresponded to the phyla Firmicutes (Clostridia, Bacilli, and Lactobacilli), Bacteroidetes, Tenericutes (Mollicutes Class), Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria, as well as to uncultured or unidentified organisms. Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes phyla and Mollicutes Class were the most commonly assigned in 11, 8, and 8 of the samples, respectively, with this being the first report of Mollicutes in wild chimpanzees. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) revealed clustering of nine samples, and 80.5% of the diversity was accounted for by three samples. Morisita indices of community similarity ranged between 0.00 and 0.89, with dissimiliarity (<0.5) between most samples when compared two at a time. Our findings suggest that, although phylotypes are common among individuals, profiles among members of the same social group are host-specific. We conclude that factors other than social group, such as kinship and age, may influence fecal bacterial profiles of wild chimpanzees, and recommend that additional studies be conducted.

Gorilla gorilla gorilla gut: a potential reservoir of pathogenic bacteria as revealed using culturomics and molecular tools

“…This is similar to the bacteria cultured from fecal samples from humans in Africa and Europe16. The high abundance of Firmicutes was reported previously in wild mountain gorillas25, western lowland gorillas26 and also in other primates including old world monkeys27, chimpanzees28 and wild pygmy loris29. Actinobacteria was the second most predominant phylum in our sample; this result is in agreement with the study by Vlckova et al in captive western lowland gorillas26.…”

Analysis of the bacterial diversity in the fecal material of the endangered Yangtze finless porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis

“…For example, within the pig intestinal bacterial community, one phylotype was identified in the Mycoplasma without any cultured representative category [38]. Recently, the fecal bacterial diversity of the wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) was examined [39]. One of the phyla identified was Tenericutes, class Mollicutes.…”

The Howler Monkey as a Model for Exploring Host-Gut Microbiota Interactions in Primates

“…Although studies of rodent and human gut microbiomes are still the most numerous due to the implications of gut microbes in human health and disease, some initial investigations of nonhuman primate gut microbiota composition and function exist. These investigations have generally focused on catarrhines (Frey et al 2006 ;Fujita and Kageyama 2007 ;Uenishi et al 2007 ;Kisidayova et al 2009 ;Nakamura et al 2009 ;Szekely et al 2010 ;Degnan et al 2012 ;Moeller et al 2012 ;McCord et al 2013 ;Moeller et al 2013 ), although other primate taxa, such as the pygmy loris ( Nycticebus pygmaeus ) (Bo et al 2010 ;Xu et al 2013 ) and the black and mantled howler monkeys ( A. pigra, A. palliata ) (Nakamura et al 2011 ;Clayton et al 2012 ;Amato et al 2013 ) also have been sampled. In most of these studies, the main goal is to provide data regarding the composition of the gut microbiota.…”

“…Only one study of 12 wild chimpanzees ( P. troglodytes schweinfurthii ), belonging to the same social group and including parent-offspring pairs, has to some extent provided detailed data at the individual level (Szekely et al 2010 ). However, this study reported that while the most common bacterial phyla (Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes) were shared by all individuals, indices of microbial community similarity were only high among a few samples.…”