The Faecal Microbiome of the Wild European Badger Meles meles: A Comparison Against Other Wild Omnivorous Mammals from Across the Globe.

ABSTRACT: Here we investigate the faecal microbiome of wild European badgers Meles meles using samples collected at post-mortem as part of the All Wales Badger Found Dead study. This is the first published characterisation of the badger microbiome. We initially undertook a sex-matched age comparison between the adult and cub microbiomes, based on sequencing the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Analysis used the QIIME 2 pipeline utilising DADA2 and the Silva database for taxonomy assignment. Fusobacteria appeared to be more abundant in the microbiomes of the cubs than the adults although no significant difference was seen in alpha or beta diversity between the adult and cub badger microbiomes. Comparisons were also made against other wild, omnivorous, mammals' faecal microbiomes using publicly avai

SUBMITTER: Scott-Baumann JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9576668 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature