Like mother like nest: similarity in microbial communities of adult female Pied Flycatchers and their nests
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- 作者：Anne E. Goodenough ; Bethan Stallwood ; Shantelle Dandy…
- 关键词：Avian microbiology ; Bird microbes ; Plumage bacteria ; Ficedula hypoleuca ; Nestboxes ; Wild passerines
- 刊名：Journal of Ornithology
- 出版年：2017
- 出版时间：January 2017
- 年：2017
- 卷：158
- 期：1
- 页码：233-244
- 全文大小：
- 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
- 刊物主题：Zoology; Ecology; Fish & Wildlife Biology & Management;
- 出版者：Springer Berlin Heidelberg
- ISSN：2193-7206
- 卷排序：158
文摘
Microbial relationships between birds and nesting environments are complex and remain poorly understood. Past studies have focused on between-nest variation in egg/chick bacterial profiles with little attention given to the microbial relationships between adult birds and their nests. Moreover, very little microbial research has included mycology despite fungi being prevalent in nesting environments and important correlates of fitness in chicks. In this study, we identified microbes associated with feathers, skin and nests of Pied Flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca, an internationally declining migrant songbird. From 75 samples, we isolated 50 bacterial Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs; dominated by Enterococcus, Sanguibacter, Pseduomonas) and 63 fungal OTUs (dominated by Penicillium, Aspergillus), many of which had not previously been isolated from birds. Although females had significantly higher non-haemolytic bacterial OTU richness and males significantly higher fungal OTU richness, there was considerable diversity in actual OTUs isolated and thus there was no “typical” female, male or nest microbial profile. Interestingly though, we show for the first time that the microflora of individual females is significantly more similar the microflora of her own nest than the site-level average of all nests. This suggests microbes are shared within female-nest pairs such that microbial communities start to converge. This is probably a two-way interaction as gut/skin microbes were isolated from nests and plant/soil microbes were isolated from females. Convergence was not seen for males, which probably reflects the role of the female as sole nest builder and egg incubator in this species. We discuss these findings in relation to microbial transfer pathways and avian nesting behaviour.