Structural differences in the gut microbiome of bats using terrestrial vs. aquatic feeding resources

Abstract

Bat gut microbiomes are adapted to the specific diets of their hosts. Despite diet variation has been associated with differences in bat microbiome diversity, the influence of diet on microbial community assembly have not been fully elucidated. In the present study, we used available data on bat gut microbiome to characterize the microbial community assembly of five selected bat species (i.e., Miniopterus schreibersii, Myotis capaccinii, Myotis myotis, Myotis pilosus, and Myotis vivesi), using network analysis. These bat species with contrasting habitat and food preferences (i.e., My. capaccinii and My. pilosus can be piscivorous and/or insectivorous; Mi. schreibersii and My. myotis are exclusively insectivorous; while My. vivesi is a marine predator) offer an invaluable opportunity to test the impact of diet on bat gut microbiome assembly. The results showed that My. myotis showed the most complex network, with the highest number of nodes, while My. vivesi has the least complex structured microbiome, with lowest number of nodes in its network. No common nodes were observed in the networks of the five bat species, with My. myotis possessing the highest number of unique nodes. Only three bat species, My. myotis, My. pilosus and My. vivesi, presented a core microbiome and the distribution of local centrality measures of nodes was different in the five networks. Taxa removal followed by measurement of network connectivity revealed that My. myotis had the most robust network, while the network of My. vivesi presented the lowest tolerance to taxa removal. Prediction of metabolic pathways using PICRUSt2 revealed that Mi. schreibersii had significantly higher functional pathway’s richness compared to the other bat species. Most of predicted pathways (82%, total 435) were shared between all bat species, while My. capaccinii, My. myotis and My. vivesi, but no Mi. schreibersii or My. pilosus, showed specific pathways. We concluded that despite similar feeding habits, microbial community assembly can differ between bat species. Other factors beyond diet may play a major role in bat microbial community assembly, with host ecology, sociality and overlap in roosts likely providing additional predictors governing gut microbiome of insectivorous bats.

Gut Microbiota Composition of Insectivorous Synanthropic and Fructivorous Zoo Bats: A Direct Metagenomic Comparison

“…According to the principal component analysis, the diversity of predicted functional pathways in the gut microbiota of N. noctula and V. murinus showed more similarities compared to C. perspicillata. As expected, these results demonstrate that gut microbiota features, including microbial metabolism, strongly depend on bat diet [56,57]. The RA of predicted functional pathways in the gut microbiota of studied bats is in with previous studies.…”

Grand challenges in arachnid microbiota and diseases

“…Available tools such as PICRUSt, PICRUSt2, Tax4Fun, and FaproTax can be used to infer microbial functional genes from 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing data (Douglas et al, 2020;Sun et al, 2020). In particular, PICRUSt2 has been applied to elucidate the functional profiles of microbiota from various animals (Wu-Chuang et al, 2022a;Azělytėet al, 2023;Corduneanu et al, 2023), including several tick species such as I. scapularis (Wu-Chuang et al, 2022b), I. ricinus (Mateos-Hernańdez et al, 2020;Mateos-Hernańdez et al, 2021), Amblyomma variegatum, Amblyomma hebraeum, and Hyalomma truncatum (Chigwada et al, 2022). Predicted metabolic profile analysis using PICRUSt2 revealed a high functional redundancy in the tick microbiota (Estrada-Peña et al, 2020).…”

Comparative Analysis of the Gut Microbiota of Bat Species with Different Feeding Habits

“…In addition to these morphological and physiological adaptations, recent research has suggested that the gut microbiota of bats may also play a role in their feeding habits [ 6 ]. The gut microbiota comprises a complex assemblage of microorganisms residing in the digestive tracts of animals, including bats.…”