skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Gut microbiota and their putative metabolic functions in fragmented Bengal tiger population of Nepal

Journal Article · · PLoS ONE
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10] more »; ORCiD logo [11];  [2] « less
  1. Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, Kathmandu, (Nepal); Griffith Univ., Queensland (Australia). School of Environment
  2. Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, Kathmandu, (Nepal)
  3. US Agency for International Development, Kathmandu, (Nepal). Environment Team
  4. Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (United States). Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Sciences
  5. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States). Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Conservation
  6. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Applied Genomics
  7. Univ. of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland (Australia). School of Science and Education
  8. Griffith Univ., Queensland (Australia). School of Environment
  9. American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), New York, NY (United States). Slacker Inst. for Comparative Genomics; City Univ. of New York (CUNY), NY (United States). Hunter College. Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics Lab.
  10. City Univ. of New York (CUNY), NY (United States). Dept. of Biology; Leiden Univ. (Netherlands). Inst. of Environmental Sciences
  11. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). Dept. of Veterinary Population Medicine

Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) serve a pivotal role as an apex predator in forest ecosystems. To increase our knowledge on factors impacting the viability and health of this endangered species, we studied the gut microbiota in 32 individual Bengal tigers from three geographically separated areas (Chitwan National Park (CNP), Bardia National Park (BNP) and Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve (SWR)) in Nepal, using noninvasive genetic sampling methods. Gut microbiota influence the immune system, impact various physiological functions, and modulates metabolic reactions, that ultimately impact the host health, behavior and development. Across the tiger populations in Nepal, we found significant differences in the composition of microbial communities based on their geographic locations. Specifically, we detected significant differences between CNP and the other two protected areas (CNP vs BNP: pseudo t = 1.944, P = 0.006; CNP vs SWR: pseudo t = 1.9942, P = 0.0071), but no differences between BNP and SWR. This mirrors what has been found for tiger gene flow in the same populations, suggesting gut microbiota composition and host gene flow may be linked. Furthermore, predictive metagenome functional content analysis (PICRUSt) revealed a higher functional enrichment and diversity for significant gut microbiota in the Chitwan tiger population and the lowest enrichment and diversity in Suklaphanta. The CNP tiger population contained higher proportions of microbiota that are associated with predicted functions relevant for metabolism of amino acid, lipid, xenobiotics biodegradation, terpenoides and polyketides than the SWR population. We conclude the tiger population structure, gut microbiota profile and associated functional metabolic categories are correlated, with geographically most separated CNP and SWR tiger population having the most distinct and different host genotype and microbiota profiles. Our work dramatically expands the understanding of tiger microbiota in wild populations and provides a valuable case study on how to investigate genetic diversity at different hierarchical levels, including hosts as well as their microbial communities.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1627887
Journal Information:
PLoS ONE, Vol. 14, Issue 8; ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher:
Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (85)

Evolution of Mammals and Their Gut Microbes journal June 2008
From lifetime to evolution: timescales of human gut microbiota adaptation journal November 2014
The gut microbiota — masters of host development and physiology journal February 2013
The Impact of the Gut Microbiota on Human Health: An Integrative View journal March 2012
Host-Gut Microbiota Metabolic Interactions journal June 2012
The Host Genotype Affects the Bacterial Community in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract journal September 2001
Conservation and the Microbiome: Editorial journal March 2012
Ecological and Evolutionary Forces Shaping Microbial Diversity in the Human Intestine journal February 2006
Factors associated with the diversification of the gut microbial communities within chimpanzees from Gombe National Park journal July 2012
Social networks predict gut microbiome composition in wild baboons journal March 2015
Gut Microbiome of Coexisting BaAka Pygmies and Bantu Reflects Gradients of Traditional Subsistence Patterns journal March 2016
Habitat fragmentation is associated to gut microbiota diversity of an endangered primate: implications for conservation journal October 2015
Habitat degradation impacts black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra) gastrointestinal microbiomes journal March 2013
Diet and Environment Shape Fecal Bacterial Microbiota Composition and Enteric Pathogen Load of Grizzly Bears journal December 2011
Gut microbiome composition and metabolomic profiles of wild western lowland gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla ) reflect host ecology journal April 2015
The Roles of host Evolutionary Relationships (Genus: Nasonia) and Development in Structuring Microbial Communities: Divergence In Nasonia Microbial Communities journal October 2011
Gut microbial communities of American pikas ( Ochotona princeps ): Evidence for phylosymbiosis and adaptations to novel diets journal June 2017
Microbiome analysis among bats describes influences of host phylogeny, life history, physiology and geography: MICROBIOME ANALYSIS AMONG BATS journal April 2012
Co-evolution in context: The importance of studying gut microbiomes in wild animals journal January 2013
The current future understanding of inflammatory bowel disease journal December 2002
Defects in mucosal immunity leading to ulcerative colitis journal August 2005
The gut microbiota shapes intestinal immune responses during health and disease journal May 2009
Intestinal Microbiota of Dogs and Cats: a Bigger World than We Thought journal March 2011
Microbiomes, metagenomics, and primate conservation: New strategies, tools, and applications journal July 2016
Saving wild tigers: A case study in biodiversity loss and challenges to be met for recovery beyond 2010 journal December 2010
The Fate of Wild Tigers journal June 2007
Influence of prey depletion and human disturbance on tiger occupancy in Nepal: Nepal tiger occupancy journal August 2012
The Long-Term Effects of Tiger Poaching on Population Viability journal October 1995
Landscape Analysis of Tiger Distribution and Habitat Quality in Nepal journal December 1998
Assessment of genetic diversity, population structure, and gene flow of tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) across Nepal's Terai Arc Landscape journal March 2018
Designing a Conservation Landscape for Tigers in Human-Dominated Environments journal June 2004
Assessing habitat suitability for tiger in the fragmented Terai Arc Landscape of India and Nepal journal March 2011
Human-Carnivore Conflict and Perspectives on Carnivore Management Worldwide journal December 2003
The Relation Between the Number of Species and the Number of Individuals in a Random Sample of an Animal Population journal May 1943
Trophic position determines functional and phylogenetic recovery after disturbance within a community journal March 2017
Controlling the False Discovery Rate: A Practical and Powerful Approach to Multiple Testing journal January 1995
Transfer of Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria Between Intermingled Ecological Niches: The Interface Between Humans, Animals and the Environment journal January 2013
Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome journal December 2013
Human gut microbiome viewed across age and geography journal May 2012
Integrated Community Profiling Indicates Long-Term Temporal Stability of the Predominant Faecal Microbiota in Captive Cheetahs journal April 2015
Composition and diversity of the bacterial community in snow leopard (Uncia uncia) distal gut journal May 2014
Massive parallel 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing reveals highly diverse fecal bacterial and fungal communities in healthy dogs and cats: Fecal microbiota in dogs and cats using pyrosequencing journal February 2011
First report on the bacterial diversity in the distal gut of dholes (Cuon alpinus) by using 16S rRNA gene sequences analysis journal September 2015
Helminth infections and gut microbiota – a feline perspective journal December 2016
Diet and phylogeny shape the gut microbiota of Antarctic seals: a comparison of wild and captive animals: The gut microbiota of wild and captive Antarctic seals journal November 2012
Gene-centric metagenomics analysis of feline intestinal microbiome using 454 junior pyrosequencing journal March 2012
Comparison of the fecal microbiota of dholes high-throughput Illumina sequencing of the V3–V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene journal January 2016
Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences reveals distal gut bacterial diversity in wild wolves (Canis lupus) journal March 2010
Preservation of avian blood and tissue samples for DNA analyses journal January 1991
Optimizing collection methods for noninvasive genetic sampling of neotropical felids: Noninvasive Genetic Sampling of Wild Felids journal April 2015
Genotyping faecal samples of Bengal tiger Panthera tigris tigris for population estimation: A pilot study journal October 2006
A Genetic Linkage Map of Microsatellites in the Domestic Cat (Felis catus) journal April 1999
Fourteen new di- and tetranucleotide microsatellite loci for the critically endangered Indian tiger ( Panthera tigris tigris ) journal November 2008
An STR Forensic Typing System for Genetic Individualization of Domestic Cat ( Felis catus ) Samples journal January 2005
Global patterns of 16S rRNA diversity at a depth of millions of sequences per sample journal June 2010
QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data journal April 2010
Greengenes, a Chimera-Checked 16S rRNA Gene Database and Workbench Compatible with ARB journal July 2006
Stability of operational taxonomic units: an important but neglected property for analyzing microbial diversity journal May 2015
PyNAST: a flexible tool for aligning sequences to a template alignment journal November 2009
FastTree 2 – Approximately Maximum-Likelihood Trees for Large Alignments journal March 2010
phyloseq: An R Package for Reproducible Interactive Analysis and Graphics of Microbiome Census Data journal April 2013
Canonical Analysis of Principal Coordinates: a Useful Method of Constrained Ordination for Ecology journal February 2003
Multivariate dispersion as a measure of beta diversity journal June 2006
Predictive functional profiling of microbial communities using 16S rRNA marker gene sequences journal August 2013
IMG: the integrated microbial genomes database and comparative analysis system journal December 2011
KEGG for integration and interpretation of large-scale molecular data sets journal November 2011
STAMP: statistical analysis of taxonomic and functional profiles journal July 2014
Generalized procrustes analysis journal March 1975
Landscape Analysis of Tiger Distribution and Habitat Quality in Nepal journal December 1998
Reconstruction of ancient microbial genomes from the human gut journal May 2021
Microbial Dysbiosis During Simian Immunodeficiency Virus Infection is Partially Reverted with Combination Anti-retroviral Therapy journal April 2020
The Long-Term Effects of Tiger Poaching on Population Viability journal October 1995
Aging features of the migratory locust at physiological and transcriptional levels journal April 2021
Helminth infections and gut microbiota - a feline perspective journalarticle January 2016
Assessment of genetic diversity, population structure, and gene flow of tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) across Nepal's Terai Arc Landscape dataset January 2018
seqs.fna dataset January 2019
Assessment of genetic diversity, population structure, and gene flow of tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) across Nepal's Terai Arc Landscape dataset January 2018
The environment and species affect gut bacteria composition in laboratory co-cultured Anopheles gambiae and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes journal February 2020
Comparative analysis of racial differences in breast tumor microbiome journal August 2020
Infant gut microbiota characteristics generally do not modify effects of lipid-based nutrient supplementation on growth or inflammation: secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial in Malawi journal September 2020
Environmental factors shape the epiphytic bacterial communities of Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis journal April 2021
Captivity humanizes the primate microbiome journal August 2016
The Bamboo-Eating Giant Panda Harbors a Carnivore-Like Gut Microbiota, with Excessive Seasonal Variations journal July 2015
The Microbiome of Animals: Implications for Conservation Biology journal January 2016
Factors that drive variation among gut microbial communities journal September 2013