Wu Yuannuo, Li Zihan, Zhao Jingru, Chen Zhong, Xiang Xingjia
School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
International Collaborative Research Center for Huangshan Biodiversity and Tibetan Macaque Behavioral Ecology, Hefei, China.
Front Microbiol. 2022 Sep 7;13:991998. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.991998. eCollection 2022.
The intestinal microbiota play vital roles for health of wild birds in many ways. Migratory birds with unique life history might increase the risk of pathogenic transmission across the regions. However, few studies have clarified the fungal community structure and inferred the potential pathogens in guts of migratory birds. The high-throughput sequencing method was applied to analyze the fungal community structure and detect the potential fungal pathogens in guts of hooded cranes among different wintering stages. Significant differences were found in gut fungal community composition of hooded cranes among three wintering stages, with the lowest fungal diversity in the late wintering stage. In the late stage, hooded cranes harbored higher relative abundance of plant saprotroph, contributing to food digestion for hosts. Hooded cranes were associated with the lowest diversity and relative abundance of animal pathogens in the late wintering stage. There was an increasing trend of deterministic process for gut fungal community assembly, suggesting that hosts interaction with their fungal communities changed by enhanced gut selection/filtering along wintering periods. Hooded crane was associated with the strongest gut selection/filtering to obtain defined gut fungal community with retaining probiotics (i.e., plant saprotroph) and exclusion of certain pathogens in the late wintering stage. Overall, these results demonstrated that hooded cranes might regulate their gut microbiota to enhance digestion and decrease gut pathogens in preparation for long-term migration.
肠道微生物群在许多方面对野生鸟类的健康起着至关重要的作用。具有独特生活史的候鸟可能会增加跨区域病原体传播的风险。然而，很少有研究阐明候鸟肠道中的真菌群落结构并推断潜在病原体。本研究应用高通量测序方法分析了白头鹤在不同越冬阶段肠道中的真菌群落结构，并检测潜在的真菌病原体。结果发现，白头鹤在三个越冬阶段的肠道真菌群落组成存在显著差异，越冬后期真菌多样性最低。在越冬后期，白头鹤体内植物腐生菌的相对丰度较高，有助于宿主消化食物。越冬后期，白头鹤体内动物病原体的多样性和相对丰度最低。肠道真菌群落组装的确定性过程呈增加趋势，这表明宿主与其真菌群落的相互作用随着越冬期间肠道选择/过滤作用的增强而发生变化。在越冬后期，白头鹤与最强的肠道选择/过滤作用相关联，以获得特定的肠道真菌群落，保留益生菌（即植物腐生菌）并排除某些病原体。总体而言，这些结果表明，白头鹤可能会调节其肠道微生物群，以增强消化并减少肠道病原体，为长期迁徙做准备。
