Seasonal and Sexual Differences in the Microbiota of the Hoopoe Uropygial Secretion.

ABSTRACT: The uropygial gland of hoopoe nestlings and nesting females hosts bacterial symbionts that cause changes in the characteristics of its secretion, including an increase of its antimicrobial activity. These changes occur only in nesting individuals during the breeding season, possibly associated with the high infection risk experienced during the stay in the hole-nests. However, the knowledge on hoopoes uropygial gland microbial community dynamics is quite limited and based so far on culture-dependent and molecular fingerprinting studies. In this work, we sampled wild and captive hoopoes of different sex, age, and reproductive status, and studied their microbiota using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and pyrosequencing. Surprisingly, w

SUBMITTER: Rodriguez-Ruano SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6115775 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature