Space, time, and captivity: quantifying the factors influencing the fecal microbiome of an alpine ungulate

Abstract

16The community of microorganisms in the gut is affected by host species, diet, and 17 environment and is linked to normal functioning of the host organism. Although the microbiome 18 fluctuates in response to host demands and environmental changes, there are core groups of 19 microorganisms that remain relatively constant throughout the hosts lifetime. Ruminants are 20 mammals that rely on highly specialized digestive and metabolic modifications, including 21 microbiome adaptations, to persist in extreme environments. Here, we assayed the fecal 22 microbiome of four mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) populations in western North 23America. We quantified fecal microbiome diversity and composition among groups in the wild 24 and captivity, across populations, and in a single group over time. There were no differences in 25 community evenness or diversity across groups, although we observed a decreasing diversity 26 trend across summer months. Pairwise sample estimates grouped the captive population 27 distinctly from the wild populations, and moderately grouped the southern wild group distinctly 28 from the two northern wild populations. We identified 33 genera modified by captivity, with 29 major differences in key groups associated with cellulose degradation that likely reflect 30 differences in diet. Our findings are consistent with other ruminant studies and provide baseline 31 microbiome data in this enigmatic species, offering valuable insights into the health of wild 32 alpine ungulates. 33Summary: This study characterizes the microbiome of mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) 35 populations across populations and over summer months; we also quantified the effects of 36 captivity to offer more insights into the health of alpine wildlife. 37

Anthropogenic interferences lead to gut microbiome dysbiosis in Asian elephants and may alter adaptation processes to surrounding environments

“…Our hypothesis is that some gut bacteria in elephants were replaced by those associated with the other animals in the surrounding environment of captivity. It is worth mentioning that this insignificant difference in alpha diversity between gut microbiome in captive and semi-captive elephants was previously observed by other studies on mammals such as mountain goats 47 and black rhinoceros 48 , which can support our hypothesis.…”

A comparison of wild and captive Comal Springs riffle beetle (Heterelmis comalensis) microbiomes

“…Despite the higher bacterial diversity of the captive beetle microbiomes, their microbiomes are more similar to each other in composition compared to the wild beetle microbiomes based on the nMDS ( Figure 3 ). The wild beetle microbiomes individually had lower diversity, but differed more from one another according to the distance between groups in the nMDS, which could be due to increased physical distances between beetles and variation in the environment (Huston & Gibson, 2015, Ajani et al ., 2018, Haworth et al ., 2019). One study found that the gut of captive rhinoceroses has a higher bacterial diversity attributed to contact with humans and interaction with man-made environments (McKenzie et al ., 2017).…”

Improving the Efficiency of Rumen Function: When to Intervene

“…The effect of the host on the rumen microbiome relates to the morphological, physiological, and behavioural adaptations of ruminants to their environmental conditions (Hofmann 1989;Haworth et al 2018). The evolution of the rumen microbiome relative to the host and environment has been reported by Zhang et al (2016).…”