Gut microbiome shifts with urbanization and potentially facilitates a zoonotic pathogen in a wading bird.

ABSTRACT: Microbial communities in the gastrointestinal tract influence many aspects of host health, including metabolism and susceptibility to pathogen colonization. These relationships and the environmental and individual factors that drive them are relatively unexplored for free-living wildlife. We quantified the relationships between urban habitat use, diet, and age with microbiome composition and diversity for 82 American white ibises (Eudocimus albus) captured along an urban gradient in south Florida and tested whether gut microbial diversity was associated with Salmonella enterica prevalence. Shifts in community composition were significantly associated with urban land cover and, to a lesser extent, diets higher in provisioned food. The diversity of genera was negatively associated with commu

SUBMITTER: Murray MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7058277 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature