Diet drives the gut microbiome composition and assembly processes in winter migratory birds in the Poyang Lake wetland, China

Abstract

The complex gut bacterial communities may facilitate the function, distribution, and diversity of birds. For migratory birds, long-distance traveling poses selection pressures on their gut microbiota, ultimately affecting the birds’ health, fitness, ecology, and evolution. However, our understanding of mechanisms that underlie the assembly of the gut microbiome of migratory birds is limited. In this study, the gut microbiota of winter migratory birds in the Poyang Lake wetland was characterized using MiSeq sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The sampled bird included herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous birds from a total of 17 species of 8 families. Our results showed that the gut microbiota of migratory birds was dominated by four major bacterial phyla: Firmicutes (47.8%), Proteobacteria (18.2%), Fusobacteria (12.6%), and Bacteroidetes (9.1%). Dietary specialization outweighed the phylogeny of birds as an important factor governing the gut microbiome, mainly through regulating the deterministic processes of homogeneous selection and stochastic processes of homogeneous dispersal balance. Moreover, the omnivorous had more bacterial diversity than the herbivorous and carnivorous. Microbial networks for the gut microbiome of the herbivorous and carnivorous were less integrated, i.e., had lower average node degree and greater decreased network stability upon node attack removal than those of the omnivorous birds. Our findings advance the understanding of host-microbiota interactions and the evolution of migratory bird dietary flexibility and diversification.

Comparative analysis of the gut bacteria and fungi in migratory demoiselle cranes (Grus virgo) and common cranes (Grus grus) in the Yellow River Wetland, China

“…This is consistent with the results for gut bacteria in captive common and demoiselle cranes (Wang, 2022 ). Research has indicated that Firmicutes are more abundant in herbivorous animals (Wang et al, 2022 ), and their main function is to break down cellulose into volatile fatty acids that can be assimilated by the host, increase nutrient utilization, regulate T cells to strengthen host immunity, inhibit intestinal inflammation, and maintain the ecological balance of the gut microbiota (Fernando et al, 2010 ; Guan et al, 2017 ). The abundance of Firmicutes in the guts of common cranes was higher than that in demoiselle cranes, and this may be related to the different feeding habits of the two cranes.…”

Are fecal samples an appropriate proxy for amphibian intestinal microbiota?

“…Diet is a significant contributor to fecal microbiota in a wide range of taxa, such as mammals (van Leeuwen et al., 2020 ; Zoelzer et al., 2021 ), birds (Schmiedová et al., 2022 ; Wang et al., 2022 ), fish (Härer & Rennison, 2023 ; Ringø et al., 2016 ), reptiles (Fong et al., 2020 ; Hoffbeck et al., 2023 ; Jiang et al., 2017 ), and amphibians (Chang et al., 2016 ; Wang, Smith, et al., 2021 ; Wang, Wang, et al., 2021 ). Diet can alter fecal microbiota in multiple ways.…”

From islands to infectomes: host-specific viral diversity among birds across remote islands

“…Host taxonomy is frequently found to be the most significant impactor of virome composition [ 77 ], likely explained by viruses being obligatory intracellular parasites that depend on host factors such as specific cell receptor binding and replication machinery to infect and replicate within their host, and are therefore generally more host-specific. Contrastingly, non-viral microbiomes can be more generalised and are well documented as being more strongly influenced by non-host factors such as seasonality and geography [ 60 , 78 , 79 ], diet [ 80 , 81 ], age [ 82 ], and sex [ 78 , 83 ].…”