Laboratorio de Fisiología Gastrointestinal, Centro de Biofísica y Bioquímica, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Miranda, Venezuela.
Microbiology Department, University of Puerto Rico, School of Medicine, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
PeerJ. 2023 Feb 13;11:e14805. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14805. eCollection 2023.
The Horned Screamer is an herbivorous bird that inhabits wetlands of the South American tropical region. We hypothesize that due to its herbivorous niche, its digestive tract compartments may have bacteria specialized in fermenting complex plant carbohydrates. To test this hypothesis, we compared the bacterial communities along the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of a Horned Screamer captured in Venezuela.
Samples were taken from tissues and content of the proventriculus and the small intestine (considered for this study as upper GIT), and the large intestine and cecum (lower GIT). The bacterial community was characterized by sequencing the V4 region of the gene. Bioinformatic analysis was performed using QIIME, QIITA and Microbiome Analyst. The association between microbial taxonomy and function was analyzed using their Greengenes OTU IDs and a custom KEGG BRITE hierarchical tree and visualized with BURRITO.
The Screamer's gastrointestinal microbiota was composed by seven phyla being Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes the most predominant. The dominant taxa in the upper GIT were and . The dominant taxa in the lower GIT were and . Complete degradation of cellulose to the end-products acetate, propanoate, butanoate and acetoacetate was found in the upper and lower GIT without significant differences.
Our study confirmed changes in bacterial community composition throughout the GIT of the Horned Screamer primarily associated with the production of metabolic end-products of carbohydrate digestion essential for the fermentation of the herbivorous diet.
角 scream 是一种草食性鸟类，栖息在南美热带地区的湿地中。我们假设，由于其草食性生态位，其消化道隔间可能有专门发酵复杂植物碳水化合物的细菌。为了验证这一假设，我们比较了在委内瑞拉捕获的角 scream 沿胃肠道（GIT）的细菌群落。
从组织和前胃及小肠（被认为是上 GIT）的内容物以及大肠和盲肠（下 GIT）中取样。通过测序基因的 V4 区来描述细菌群落。使用 QIIME、QIITA 和 Microbiome Analyst 进行生物信息学分析。使用其 Greengenes OTU ID 和自定义 KEGG BRITE 层次树分析微生物分类群与功能之间的关联，并使用 BURRITO 可视化。
screamer 的胃肠道微生物群由七个门组成，其中厚壁菌门和拟杆菌门最为丰富。上 GIT 的主要分类群是和。下 GIT 的主要分类群是和。在上 GIT 和下 GIT 中均发现纤维素完全降解为终产物乙酸盐、丙酸盐、丁酸盐和乙酰乙酸盐，没有显著差异。
我们的研究证实了角 scream 的 GIT 中的细菌群落组成发生了变化，主要与碳水化合物消化的代谢终产物的产生有关，这些终产物对草食性饮食的发酵至关重要。
