The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of vertebrates contains a series of organs beginning with the mouth and ending with the anus or cloacal opening. Each organ represents a unique environment for resident microorganisms. Due to their simple digestive anatomy, snakes are good models for studying microbiome variation along the GIT. Cloacal sampling captures the majority of the microbial diversity found in the GIT of snakes—yet little is known about the oral microbiota of snakes. Most research on the snake mouth and gut microbiota are limited to studies of a single species or captive-bred individuals. It therefore remains unclear how a host’s life history, diet, or evolutionary history correlate with differences in the microbial composition within the mouths and guts of wild snakes. We sampled the mouth and gut microbial communities from three species of Asian venomous snakes and utilized 16S rRNA microbial inventories to test if host phylogenetic and ecological differences correlate with distinct microbial compositions within the two body sites. These species occupy three disparate habitat types: marine, semi-arboreal, and arboreal, our results suggest that the diversity of snake mouth and gut microbial communities correlate with differences in both host ecology and phylogeny.
Biodiversity monitoring is imperative for understanding how changing climate may impact the distributions of taxa from single species to the spatial distribution of biological diversity. Large-scale and cross-taxa biodiversity monitoring also allows an empirical understanding of biogeographic patterns across taxa. One such pattern, where in taxonomic richness peaks at tropical latitudes are typically treated as a biogeographical rule with few notable exceptions. Here we leveraged the invertebrate pitfall collections of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) across North America to describe patterns of local taxonomic richness across taxa and across taxonomic scale. We focused on Arthropoda, Annelida and Mollusca. Additionally, we estimated regional species richness using expert-identified samples of three NEON sentinel taxa: Carabidae, Culicidae and Ixodida. To sample pitfall animals, we filtered storage ethanol and employed environmental DNA-barcoding methodologies to amplify and sequence extracted DNA from the filtrate for two regions of a mitochondrial gene. We assigned taxonomic names to these sequences at 97% similarity to reference sequences and calculated local taxonomic richness at the levels of species, genus, family and order. We calculated local species richness for 12 common invertebrate taxa. We used generalized linear models to describe the relationships between taxonomic richness and spatial, climatic and abundance predictor variables. At four taxonomic scales, ranging from species to order, taxonomic richnessincreased significantly as a function of latitude. Of the twelve invertebrate taxa weexamined, seven mirrored this positive latitudinal gradient in species richness. At theregional scale, two of three NEON Sentinel Taxa showed positive latitudinal gradientsin species richness. Temperature, precipitation, abundance and sequence read numberplayed minor roles in explaining patterns of taxonomic richness. When considering these mostly temperate sites that span 46 degrees of latitude, we found no support for the expected negative latitudinal gradients across taxa and taxonomic scales. Instead, for many of these taxa and taxonomic scales, we observed significant, positive richness gradients with increasing latitude among ground-dwelling invertebrate communities. Thus, one of the most 'general' patterns in biogeography was not found for most invertebrate taxa across temperate latitudes.
We describe the development and validation of a qPCR assay to detect Poecilia reticulata, a highly invasive species of freshwater fish invasive to the Caribbean islands, through environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling. Originating from Trinidad, this species is invasive and detrimental to countless native tropical fish communities. A qPCR assay, consisting of a set of primers and a fluorescent probe, amplifying a 214 base pair target region of the mitochondrial Cytochrome B gene was designed for P. reticulata from existing DNA sequence data. The assay was assessed for target specificity, with no evidence of amplification in closely related or sympatrically distributed non‐target species. In vitro tests indicate that the assay consistently detects P. reticulata down to concentrations of 2.0 × 10−5 ng/μl. The developed assay provides a new, practical tool for monitoring freshwater habitats throughout the Caribbean, allowing for early and rapid detection of invasive fish species of conservation concern.
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