Search for: All records

Abstract BackgroundSpecies host diverse microbial communities that can impact their digestion and health, which has led to much interest in understanding the factors that influence their microbiota. We studied the developmental, environmental, and social factors that influence the microbiota of nestling barn owls (Tyto alba) through a partial cross-fostering experiment that manipulated the social and nest environment of the nestlings. We then examined the nestling microbiota before and three weeks after the exchange of nestlings between nests, along with the microbiota of the adults at the nest and nestlings in unmanipulated nests. ResultsWe found that nestlings had higher bacterial diversity and different bacterial communities than adults. The microbiota of nestlings was more like that of their mothers than their fathers, but the similarity to the father tended to increase with the amount of time the father was in close proximity to the nest, as measured from movement data. Cross-fostered offspring had higher bacterial diversity and greater changes in bacterial community composition over time than control offspring. Cross-fostering led the microbiota of the nestlings in the experiment to converge on similar bacterial communities. The microbiota of nestling owls therefore rapidly changed along with alterations to their social and nest environments. ConclusionsThese results highlight the dynamic nature of the microbiota during early development and that social interactions can shape microbial communities. 

Abstract The behavioural ecology of host species is likely to affect their microbial communities, because host sex, diet, physiology, and movement behaviour could all potentially influence their microbiota. We studied a wild population of barn owls (Tyto alba) and collected data on their microbiota, movement, diet, size, coloration, and reproduction. The composition of bacterial species differed by the sex of the host and female owls had more diverse bacterial communities than their male counterparts. The abundance of two families of bacteria, Actinomycetaceae and Lactobacillaceae, also varied between the sexes, potentially as a result of sex differences in hormones and immunological function, as has previously been found with Lactobacillaceae in the microbiota of mice. Male and female owls did not differ in the prey they brought to the nest, which suggests that dietary differences are unlikely to underlie the differences in their microbiota. The movement behaviour of the owls was associated with the host microbiota in both males and females because owls that moved further from their nest each day had more diverse bacterial communities than owls that stayed closer to their nests. This novel result suggests that the movement ecology of hosts can impact their microbiota, potentially on the basis of their differential encounters with new bacterial species as the hosts move and forage across the landscape. Overall, we found that many aspects of the microbial community are correlated with the behavioural ecology of the host and that data on the microbiota can aid in generating new hypotheses about host behaviour.