Guano exposed: Impact of aerobic conditions on bat fecal microbiota.

ABSTRACT: Bats and their associated guano microbiota provide important terrestrial and subterranean ecosystem services and serve as a reservoir for a wide range of epizootic and zoonotic diseases. Unfortunately, large-scale studies of bats and their guano microbiotas are limited by the time and cost of sample collection, which requires specially trained individuals to work at night to capture bats when they are most active. Indirectly surveying bat gut microbiota through guano deposits could be a more cost-effective alternative, but it must first be established whether the postdefecation exposure to an aerobic environment has a large impact on the guano microbial community. A number of recent studies on mammalian feces have shown that the impact of aerobic exposure is highly species specific; theref

SUBMITTER: Fofanov VY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6010783 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature