Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, United States of America.
Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Jul 10;19(7):e0306722. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306722. eCollection 2024.
Host microbial communities (hereafter, the 'microbiome') are recognized as an important aspect of host health and are gaining attention as a useful biomarker to understand the ecology and demographics of wildlife populations. Several studies indicate that the microbiome may contribute to the adaptive capacity of animals to changing environments associated with increasing habitat fragmentation and rapid climate change. To this end, we investigated the gut microbiome of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), an iconic species in an environment that is undergoing both climatic and anthropogenic change. The bacterial composition of the pronghorn gut microbiome has yet to be described in the literature, and thus our study provides important baseline information about this species. We used 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of fecal samples to characterize the gut microbiome of pronghorn-a facultative sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) specialist in many regions where they occur in western North America. We collected fecal pellets from 159 captured female pronghorn from four herds in the Red Desert of Wyoming during winters of 2013 and 2014. We found small, but significant differences in diversity of the gut microbiome relative to study area, capture period, and body fat measurements. In addition, we found a difference in gut microbiome composition in pronghorn across two regions separated by Interstate 80. Results indicated that the fecal microbiome may be a potential biomarker for the spatial ecology of free-ranging ungulates. The core gut microbiome of these animals-including bacteria in the phyla Firmicutes (now Bacillota) and Bacteroidota-remained relatively stable across populations and biological metrics. These findings provide a baseline for the gut microbiome of pronghorn that could potentially be used as a target in monitoring health and population structure of pronghorn relative to habitat fragmentation, climate change, and management practices.
宿主微生物群落（以下简称“微生物组”）被认为是宿主健康的一个重要方面，并且作为了解野生动物种群生态和人口统计学的有用生物标志物而受到关注。有几项研究表明，微生物组可能有助于动物适应与栖息地破碎化和快速气候变化相关的环境变化。为此，我们调查了叉角羚（Antilocapra americana）的肠道微生物组，叉角羚是一种标志性物种，生活在正在经历气候和人为变化的环境中。叉角羚肠道微生物组的细菌组成在文献中尚未描述，因此我们的研究为该物种提供了重要的基线信息。我们使用粪便样本的 16S rRNA 扩增子测序来描述叉角羚的肠道微生物组，叉角羚是北美西部许多地区的薊（Artemisia spp.）的兼性专食者。我们于 2013 年和 2014 年冬季在怀俄明州红沙漠的四个牛群中从 159 只被捕雌性叉角羚中收集了粪便球。我们发现，相对于研究区域、捕获时间和体脂测量值，肠道微生物组的多样性存在小但显著的差异。此外，我们在跨越 80 号州际公路的两个区域发现了叉角羚肠道微生物组组成的差异。结果表明，粪便微生物组可能是自由放养有蹄类动物空间生态学的潜在生物标志物。这些动物的核心肠道微生物组——包括厚壁菌门（现为 Bacillota）和拟杆菌门（Bacteroidota）的细菌——在种群和生物学指标上相对稳定。这些发现为叉角羚的肠道微生物组提供了一个基线，可能可用于监测相对于栖息地破碎化、气候变化和管理实践的叉角羚的健康和种群结构。
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