Grieves Leanne A, Gloor Gregory B
Department of Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W, Hamilton, ON, L8S 3L8, Canada.
Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA.
Anim Microbiome. 2025 Jan 30;7(1):11. doi: 10.1186/s42523-024-00367-8.
Symbiotic microbiota are important drivers of host behaviour, health, and fitness. While most studies focus on humans, model organisms, and domestic or economically important species, research investigating the role of host microbiota in wild populations is rapidly accumulating. Most studies focus on the gut microbiota; however, skin and other glandular microbiota also play an important role in shaping traits that may impact host fitness. The uropygial gland is an important source of chemical cues and harbours diverse microbes that could mediate chemical communication in birds, so determining the factors most important in shaping host microbiota should improve our understanding of microbially-mediated chemical communication. Hypothesizing that temporal, geographic, and taxonomic effects influence host microbiota, we evaluated the effects of season, migration distance, and taxonomy on the uropygial gland microbiota of 18 passerine species from 11 families. By sampling 473 birds at a single stopover location during spring and fall migration and using 16S rRNA sequencing, we demonstrate that season, followed by migration distance, had the strongest influence on uropygial gland microbial community composition. While statistically significant, taxonomic family and species had only weak effects on gland microbiota. Given that temporal effects on gland microbiota were nearly ubiquitous among the species we tested, determining the consequences of and mechanisms driving this seasonal variation are important next steps.
共生微生物群是宿主行为、健康和适应性的重要驱动因素。虽然大多数研究集中在人类、模式生物以及家养或具有经济重要性的物种上，但关于宿主微生物群在野生种群中作用的研究正在迅速积累。大多数研究聚焦于肠道微生物群；然而，皮肤和其他腺体微生物群在塑造可能影响宿主适应性的性状方面也发挥着重要作用。尾脂腺是化学信号的重要来源，含有多种微生物，这些微生物可能介导鸟类的化学通讯，因此确定塑造宿主微生物群最重要的因素应该会增进我们对微生物介导的化学通讯的理解。基于时间、地理和分类学效应会影响宿主微生物群的假设，我们评估了季节、迁徙距离和分类学对11个科18种雀形目鸟类尾脂腺微生物群的影响。通过在春秋季迁徙期间在一个中途停留地点对473只鸟进行采样，并使用16S rRNA测序，我们证明季节对尾脂腺微生物群落组成的影响最大，其次是迁徙距离。虽然分类学上的科和物种有统计学上的显著影响，但对腺体微生物群的影响较弱。鉴于我们测试的物种中对腺体微生物群的时间效应几乎普遍存在，确定这种季节性变化的后果和驱动机制是接下来的重要步骤。
