![]() ![]() ![]() As a result, non-invasive sampling, where DNA is obtained from the species’ scats, feathers, or hair, has risen in popularity over the last decade. Previously, accessing a host’s microbiome relied purely upon invasive methods, which can be more challenging than acquiring other types of baseline data on endangered individuals. demonstrated that monitoring host’s microbiota before, during, and after translocation can guide adaptation to a new diet, improving translocation or reintroduction projects and individuals’ health/adaptation capacity in the wild.Īs studies into host-microbe communities uncover factors that drive the population’s health and fitness, incorporating microbial analysis into conservation monitoring and surveillance becomes increasingly valuable. Feeding subjects with a diet from the new habitat while in care can be highly beneficial. As gut bacterial communities have coevolved with their host to maximize digestion, translocated individuals may need to adjust their microbiome to a new diet post-translocation. highlight the need to use microbiome composition and structure alongside traditional indices in future research, potentially identifying high-quality habitats for threatened species.īuilding on the importance of microbiome research in conservation and the role of health parameters, diet plays a vital role in shaping the gut microbiome, making microbiome studies informative for translocating or reintroducing endangered species. Studies such as Littleford-Colquhoun et al. Understanding the drivers of host-microbiome variations can inform wildlife conservation and management by identifying baseline population characteristics. Health parameters are increasingly being used to monitor populations, yet they should accurately describe the characteristics of the specific population (health status, fitness, or population trends). As such, the study of gut microbiomes is becoming an essential component of conservation biology. For instance, overgrowth of Candida albicans is a major cause of morbidity and death in critical care settings not only for humans but also for other mammals such as koalas (Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, personal communication). Changes in fungal abundance can also compromise animals’ health. An imbalance in the composition of the bacterial gut communities (i.e., dysbiosis) can be linked to numerous host diseases (e.g., cancer, malnutrition, and increased severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection). Together these factors contribute to maintaining homeostasis, which is paramount to host fitness. It is understood that the composition of the microbiome (bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and protists) is shaped by the genes and the environment of animals. Research has shown that gut microbiota and their metabolites influence the overall health of animals, including physiology, nutrition, immunology, and behaviour (e.g., ). We emphasize the need to preserve the integrity of scat samples collected in the wild and combat the effects of time and provide strategies for doing so. We report a cluster of fungal taxa that colonises scats after defecation which can dilute the genetic material from the autochthonous mycoflora and inhibit recovery. The absence of an increase in facultative anaerobes and the stable population of obligate anaerobic bacteria were likely due to our sampling from the inner portion of the scat. We found that the bacterial composition remained stable through the scat aging process, while the fungal composition did not. In this study, we measured the effects of time post-defecation on bacterial and fungal compositions in a controlled experiment using scat samples from the endangered koala ( Phascolarctos cinereus). However, the impact that this aging process has on the relationship between the bacterial and fungal composition has yet to be explored. Previous studies using scats have shown that the impact of aerobic exposure on the microbial composition is species-specific, leading to different rates of change in microbial communities. However, multiple factors can bias the quality of data recovered from scats, particularly when field-collected samples are used given that the time of defecation is unknown. The study of the host-microbiome by the collection of non-invasive samples has the potential to become a powerful tool for conservation monitoring and surveillance of wildlife. ![]()
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