Dietary Flexibility and Feeding Strategies of Eulemur: A Comparison with Propithecus

Sato, Hiroki; Santini, Luca; Patel, Erik R.; Campera, Marco; Yamashita, Nayuta; Colquhoun, Ian C.; Donati, Giuseppe

doi:10.1007/s10764-015-9877-6

Cited by 44 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…In agreement with a prior survey of 59 mammalian host species [11], we found that bush pigs and cattle, both members of the foregut-fermenting Artiodactyla order, exhibited the greatest bacterial diversity, followed by the three lemur species with intermediate diversity, and finally carnivorous fossa with lowest bacterial richness. Given that sifaka and sportive lemurs, both folivorous hindgut fermenters [71,72], did not harbor significantly greater bacterial richness than brown lemurs, which are frugivorous with simple guts [73], we conclude that gut microbiome diversity among lemurs is shaped more by host phylogeny than by digestive physiology or diet.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many Malagasy lemur species modify their diet composition and foraging strategies during the dry season as temperatures fluctuate and high quality food resources and water become scarce [73,78]. The Eulemur clade are flexible frugivores [73], with high levels of folivory recorded in western populations during the dry season [79]. Propithecus and Lepilemur are both considered folivorous [71,[80][81][82], consuming leaves throughout the year [73,80,83] and fruit when available during the rainy season [43,73,80,84].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Eulemur clade are flexible frugivores [73], with high levels of folivory recorded in western populations during the dry season [79]. Propithecus and Lepilemur are both considered folivorous [71,[80][81][82], consuming leaves throughout the year [73,80,83] and fruit when available during the rainy season [43,73,80,84]. We found that the predicted functional composition of lemur microbiomes reflected differences in carbohydrate Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Terrestriality and bacterial transfer: a comparative study of gut microbiomes in sympatric Malagasy mammals

2018

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The gut microbiomes of mammals appear to mirror their hosts' phylogeny, suggesting host-driven microbial community assembly. Yet, much of this evidence stems from comparative studies of distinct wild or captive populations that lack data for disentangling the relative influences of shared phylogeny and environment. Here, we present phylogenetic and multivariate analyses of gut microbiomes from six sympatric (i.e., co-occurring) mammal species inhabiting a 1-km 2 area in western Madagascar-three lemur and three non-primate species-that consider genetic, dietary, and ecological predictors of microbiome functionality and composition. Host evolutionary history, indeed, appears to shape gut microbial patterns among both closely and distantly related species. However, we also find that diet-reliance on leaves versus fruit-is the best predictor of microbiome similarity among closely related lemur species, and that host substrate use-ground versus tree -constrains horizontal transmission via incidental contact with feces, with arboreal species harboring far more distinct communities than those of their terrestrial and semi-terrestrial counterparts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Terrestriality and bacterial transfer: a comparative study of gut microbiomes in sympatric Malagasy mammals

2018

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“…Indeed, P. candidus, like other sifakas (such as the P. diadema and P. tattersalli which lived at Duke Lemur Center, but have not survived), are likely to be extremely difficult to raise in captivity due to their highly specialized diet. Although recent seasonal dietary (Sato et al 2016) and nutritional analyses (Ganzhorn et al 2016) offer some new insights, P. candidus has never been kept in captivity, and none are found in any zoos anywhere in the world (IUCN 2015).…”

Section: Correction To Rabearivony Et Al (2015)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesis of the silky sifaka’s distribution (<i>Propithecus candidus</i>)

Patel¹

2016

MCD

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The importance of scale in comparative microbiome research: New insights from the gut and glands of captive and wild lemurs

Greene

Bornbusch

McKenney

et al. 2019

American J Primatol

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Research on animal microbiomes is increasingly aimed at determining the evolutionary and ecological factors that govern host-microbiome dynamics, which are invariably intertwined and potentially synergistic. We present three empirical studies related to this topic, each of which relies on the diversity of Malagasy lemurs (representing a total of 19 species) and the comparative approach applied across scales of analysis. In Study 1, we compare gut microbial membership across 14 species in the wild to test the relative importance of host phylogeny and feeding strategy in mediating microbiome structure.Whereas host phylogeny strongly predicted community composition, the same feeding strategies shared by distant relatives did not produce convergent microbial consortia, but rather shaped microbiomes in host lineage-specific ways, particularly in folivores. In Study 2, we compare 14 species of wild and captive folivores, frugivores, and omnivores, to highlight the importance of captive populations for advancing gut microbiome research.We show that the perturbational effect of captivity is mediated by host feeding strategy and can be mitigated, in part, by modified animal management. In Study 3, we examine various scent-gland microbiomes across three species in the wild or captivity and show them to vary by host species, sex, body site, and a proxy of social status. These rare data provide support for the bacterial fermentation hypothesis in olfactory signal production and implicate steroid hormones as mediators of microbial community structure. We conclude by discussing the role of scale in comparative microbial studies, the links between feeding strategy and host-microbiome coadaptation, the underappreciated benefits of captive populations for advancing conservation research, and the need to consider the entirety of an animal's microbiota. Ultimately, these studies will help move the field from exploratory to hypothesis-driven research. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS• Comparing gut microbiomes in diverse lemurs shows that community structure reflects host phylogeny at broad scales, but when controlling for evolutionary time, feeding strategy underlies the strength of host-microbe coadaptation at narrow scales.Am J Primatol. 2019;81:e22974.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ajp

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Dietary Flexibility and Feeding Strategies of Eulemur: A Comparison with Propithecus

Cited by 44 publications

References 86 publications

Terrestriality and bacterial transfer: a comparative study of gut microbiomes in sympatric Malagasy mammals

Terrestriality and bacterial transfer: a comparative study of gut microbiomes in sympatric Malagasy mammals

Synthesis of the silky sifaka’s distribution (<i>Propithecus candidus</i>)

The importance of scale in comparative microbiome research: New insights from the gut and glands of captive and wild lemurs

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