The Low-Diversity Fecal Microbiota of the Critically Endangered Kakapo Is Robust to Anthropogenic Dietary and Geographic Influences.

ABSTRACT: The critically endangered kākāpō, an herbivorous parrot endemic to New Zealand, is subject to intensive management to increase its population size. Key aspects of the management program include supplementary feeding and translocation of kākāpō between different predator-free islands to optimize the genetic composition of the breeding populations. While these practices have helped boost the kākāpō population, their impact on the kākāpō fecal microbiota is uncertain. Previous studies have found that the kākāpō possesses a low-diversity fecal microbiota, typically dominated by Escherichia/Shigella spp. However, the question of whether the low diversity of the kākāpō fecal microbiota is an inadvertent consequence of human interventions has yet to be investigated. To that end, we used hi

SUBMITTER: Perry EK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5655120 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature