Gut microbiome as a key monitoring indicator for reintroductions of captive animals

Abstract

Reintroduction programs seek to restore degraded populations and reverse biodiversity loss. To examine the hypothesis that gut symbionts could be used as an indicator of reintroduction success, we performed intensive metagenomic monitoring over 10 years to characterize the ecological succession and adaptive evolution of the gut symbionts of captive giant pandas reintroduced to the wild. We collected 63 fecal samples from 3 reintroduced individuals and 22 from 9 wild individuals and used 96 publicly available samples from another 3 captive individuals. By microbial composition analysis, we identified 3 community clusters of the gut microbiome (here termed enterotypes) with interenterotype succession that was closely related to the reintroduction process. Each of the 3 enterotypes was identified based on significant variation in the levels of 1 of 3 genera: Clostridium, Pseudomonas, and Escherichia. The enterotype of captive pandas was Escherichia. This enterotype was gradually replaced by the Clostridium enterotype during the wild‐training process, which in turn was replaced by the Pseudomonas enterotype that resembled the enterotype of wild pandas, an indicator of conversion to wildness and a successful reintroduction. We also isolated 1 strain of Pseudomonas protegens from the wild enterotype, a previously reported free‐living microbe, and found that its within‐host evolution contributed to host dietary adaptation in the wild. Monitoring gut microbial structure provides a novel, noninvasive tool that can be used as an indicator of successful reintroduction of a captive individual to the wild.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Natural mating ability is associated with gut microbiota composition and function in captive male giant pandas

“…Previous research has shown that Clostridium ramosum regulates enterochromaffin cell development and serotonin release (Mandić et al., 2019), while Clostridium scindens converts glucocorticoids to androgens, a group of male steroid hormones, through side‐chain cleavage (Ridlon et al., 2013). Furthermore, the latest study classified wild, reintroduction, and captive giant pandas into three community clusters of gut microbiota (enterotypes), specifically Escherichia , Clostridium , and Pseudomonas enterotypes (Huang et al., 2023). Our results indicated that the incapable group had a higher abundance of Escherichia , while the capable group exhibited an enrichment of Clostridium .…”