No Guts About It: Captivity, But Not Neophobia Phenotype, Influences the Cloacal Microbiome of House Sparrows (Passer domesticus).

ABSTRACT: Behavioral traits such as anxiety and depression have been linked to diversity of the gut microbiome in humans, domesticated animals, and lab-bred model species, but the extent to which this link exists in wild animals, and thus its ecological relevance, is poorly understood. We examined the relationship between a behavioral trait (neophobia) and the cloacal microbiome in wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus, n = 22) to determine whether gut microbial diversity is related to personality in a wild animal. We swabbed the cloaca immediately upon capture, assessed neophobia phenotypes in the lab, and then swabbed the cloaca again after several weeks in captivity to additionally test whether the microbiome of different personality types is affected disparately by captivity, and

SUBMITTER: Kelly TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9053947 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature