Department of Biological Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, 805 TRU Way, Kamloops, BC V2C 0C8, Canada.
Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada.
Can J Microbiol. 2021 Aug;67(8):572-583. doi: 10.1139/cjm-2020-0320. Epub 2021 Mar 3.
Host-associated microbial communities play important roles in wildlife health, but these dynamics can be influenced by environmental factors. Urbanization has numerous effects on wildlife; however, the degree to which wildlife-associated bacterial communities and potential bacterial pathogens vary across urban-rural/native habitat gradients remains largely unknown. We used gene amplicon sequencing to examine bacterial communities found on Mountain Chickadee () feathers and nests in urban and rural habitats. The feathers and nests in urban and rural sites had similar abundances of major bacterial phyla and dominant genera with pathogenic members. However, richness of bacterial communities and potential pathogens on birds were higher in urban habitats, and potential pathogens accounted for some of the differences in bacterial occurrence between urban and rural environments. We predicted habitat using potential pathogen occurrence with a 90% success rate for feather bacteria, and a 72.2% success rate for nest bacteria, suggesting an influence of urban environments on the presence of potential pathogens. We additionally observed similarities in bacterial communities between nests and their occupants, suggesting bacterial transmission between them. These findings improve our understanding of the bacterial communities associated with urban wildlife and suggest that urbanization impacts the composition of wildlife-associated bacterial communities.
宿主相关的微生物群落在野生动物健康中发挥着重要作用，但这些动态变化可能受到环境因素的影响。城市化对野生动物有诸多影响；然而，野生动物相关细菌群落和潜在细菌病原体在城市-农村/原生栖息地梯度上的变化程度在很大程度上仍不清楚。我们使用基因扩增子测序来研究山雀（）羽毛和巢穴中的细菌群落，这些山雀生活在城市和农村栖息地。城市和农村地区的羽毛和巢穴中主要细菌门和优势属的丰度相似，且具有致病性成员。然而，城市栖息地的鸟类细菌群落和潜在病原体的丰富度更高，而潜在病原体解释了城市和农村环境中细菌存在差异的一部分原因。我们使用潜在病原体的出现来预测栖息地，预测羽毛细菌的成功率为 90%，预测巢穴细菌的成功率为 72.2%，这表明城市环境对潜在病原体的存在有影响。我们还观察到巢穴与其栖息者之间细菌群落的相似性，这表明它们之间存在细菌传播。这些发现提高了我们对与城市野生动物相关的细菌群落的理解，并表明城市化影响了野生动物相关细菌群落的组成。
