Anthropogenic interferences lead to gut microbiome dysbiosis in Asian elephants and may alter adaptation processes to surrounding environments

Abstract

Human activities interfere with wild animals and lead to the loss of many animal populations. Therefore, efforts have been made to understand how wildlife can rebound from anthropogenic disturbances. An essential mechanism to adapt to environmental and social changes is the fluctuations in the host gut microbiome. Here we give a comprehensive description of anthropogenically induced microbiome alterations in Asian elephants (n = 30). We detected gut microbial changes due to overseas translocation, captivity and deworming. We found that microbes belonging to Planococcaceae had the highest contribution in the microbiome alterations after translocation, while Clostridiaceae, Spirochaetaceae and Bacteroidia were the most affected after captivity. However, deworming significantly changed the abundance of Flavobacteriaceae, Sphingobacteriaceae, Xanthomonadaceae, Weeksellaceae and Burkholderiaceae. These findings may provide fundamental ideas to help guide the preservation tactics and probiotic replacement therapies of a dysbiosed gut microbiome in Asian elephants. More generally, these results show the severity of anthropogenic activities at the level of gut microbiome, altering the adaptation processes to new environments and the subsequent capability to maintain normal physiological processes in animals.

Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes - how captivity changes the gut microbiome composition and diversity in a social subterranean rodent

“…30,31] or similar to that of wild animals [e.g. 23,32]. Together, this suggests that a higher diversity is not always the natural state and that the effect of captivity on gut microbiome diversity varies with host species and with speci cs in the captive environment [22].…”

Looking into the world’s largest elephant population in search of ligninolytic microorganisms for biorefineries: a mini-review

“…Elephants ingest huge amounts of poor-quality forage due to physiological disadvantages such as lower gut surface area and short intestinal tract, which lead to poor extraction capacity of nutrients [ 5 ]. Literature suggests that the gut microbiome associated with an animals’ gut is mostly influenced by their diet and ecological niches [ 26 , 100 , 101 ]. Microorganisms inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract are known to be unique to their symbiotic hosts [ 3 ].…”

“…In addition, over a third of Africa’s elephant population [ 106 ] inhabit protected game reserves such as the Chobe National Park, Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) and the Makgadikgadi salt pans game reserves which are characterised as pristine environments completely isolated from anthropogenic activities and pollution. Anthropogenic activities and pollution perturb microbial species richness and distribution [ 100 ]. Such environments suggest that there is a potential to find novel ligninolytic microorganisms with potentially undescribed metabolic pathways.…”

The relationship between dietary trophic level, parasites and the microbiome of Pacific walrus ( Odobenus rosmarus divergens )

“…In carnivores, differences in consumption patterns and trophic levels have been linked with gut microbiome variation among populations [22][23][24]. Some studies link dietary shifts related to anthropogenic disturbance with dysbiosis in the gut microbiomes of wild mammals [25,26], suggesting that the microbiome may act as a sentinel for dietary disruption in populations threatened by climate change. In the rapidly changing arctic, the gut microbiomes of marine mammals could provide insights into diet shifts and consequences for host health that are otherwise difficult to observe.…”