Habitat fragmentation is associated to gut microbiota diversity of an endangered primate: implications for conservation

Abstract

The expansion of agriculture is shrinking pristine forest areas worldwide, jeopardizing the persistence of their wild inhabitants. The Udzungwa red colobus monkey (Procolobus gordonorum) is among the most threatened primate species in Africa. Primarily arboreal and highly sensitive to hunting and habitat destruction, they provide a critical model to understanding whether anthropogenic disturbance impacts gut microbiota diversity. We sampled seven social groups inhabiting two forests (disturbed vs. undisturbed) in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. While Ruminococcaceae and Lachnospiraceae dominated in all individuals, reflecting their role in extracting energy from folivorous diets, analysis of genus composition showed a marked diversification across habitats, with gut microbiota α-diversity significantly higher in the undisturbed forest. Functional analysis suggests that such variation may be associated with food plant diversity in natural versus human-modified habitats, requiring metabolic pathways to digest xenobiotics. Thus, the effects of changes in gut microbiota should not be ignored to conserve endangered populations.

Lessons from bamboo‐eating pandas and their gut microbiome: Gut microbiome flow and applications

“…Habitat degradation has impacted the black howler monkey ( Alouatta pigra ) gut microbiome and resulted in the decrease of the alpha diversity of their gut microbiome (Amato et al, ). Other studies have revealed that the gut microbiome of the Udzungwa red colobus monkey ( Procolobus gordonorum ) in the undisturbed forest has significantly higher alpha diversity than that in the disturbed forest (Barelli et al, ). Thus, the evaluation of the relationship between fragmented habitat and gut microbiome diversity will be useful for the effective management of giant pandas.…”

Gut microbiota of provisioned and wild rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) living in a limestone forest in southwest Guangxi, China

“…Previous studies have identified host genetics as a crucial determinant of the gut microbiota (Bonder et al, 2016;Kurilshikov, Wijmenga, Fu, & Zhernakova, 2017), which varies not only between species due to differences in the digestive tract characteristics and functions (Ley et al, 2008), but also within species, with genetically similar individuals having greater gut microbial similarities than genetically different individuals (Goodrich et al, 2016(Goodrich et al, , 2014. However, recent studies have indicated that environmental factors play more crucial roles in shaping the gut microbiota than host genetics (Barelli et al, 2015;David et al, 2014;Nelson, Rogers, Carlini, & Brown, 2013;Rothschild et al, 2018;Vangay et al, 2018), with genetically unrelated individuals who live together in the long term having similar gut microbiota and relatives who live apart exhibiting significant differences in their gut microbiota (Rothschild et al, 2018).…”

Gut microbiomes of free‐ranging and captive Namibian cheetahs: Diversity, putative functions and occurrence of potential pathogens

“…Thus, microbiome similarity between kin members can be maternally inherited (Funkhouser & Bordenstein, ; Goodrich et al., ; Yuan et al., ) or can be actively shaped by the interaction of environment and host genotype (Bolnick, Snowberg, Caporaso et al., ; Bolnick, Snowberg, Hirsch et al., ). Among the extrinsic factors, comparative analyses and perturbation experiments have suggested that diet and habitat heterogeneity are major environmental drivers contributing to gut microbial variation within and between species (Amato et al., ; Barelli et al., ; Bolnick, Snowberg, Hirsch et al., ; Clayton et al., ; Gomez et al., ; Wang et al., ).…”