The gut microbiomes of Channel Island foxes and island spotted skunks exhibit fine-scale differentiation across host species and island populations.

ABSTRACT: California's Channel Islands are home to two endemic mammalian carnivores: island foxes (Urocyon littoralis) and island spotted skunks (Spilogale gracilis amphiala). Although it is rare for two insular terrestrial carnivores to coexist, these known competitors persist on both Santa Cruz Island and Santa Rosa Island. We hypothesized that examination of their gut microbial communities would provide insight into the factors that enable this coexistence, as microbial symbionts often reflect host evolutionary history and contemporary ecology. Using rectal swabs collected from island foxes and island spotted skunks sampled across both islands, we generated 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing data to characterize their gut microbiomes. While island foxes and island spotted skunks both harb

SUBMITTER: Pasciullo Boychuck S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10867392 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature