Brian K. Schmidt
Jonas Ethan Lai
Michael S. Gross
Michelle L. Hladik
Kenan Oguz Matterson
Natalie Karouna-Renier
Sergei V. Drovetski
2022
<div id="abs0010" class="abstract author" lang="en"><div id="abssec0010"><p id="abspara0010">Chemically intensive crop production depletes wildlife food resources, hinders animal development, health, survival, and reproduction, and it suppresses wildlife immune systems, facilitating emergence of infectious diseases with excessive mortality rates. Gut microbiota is crucial for wildlife's response to environmental stressors. Its composition and functionality are sensitive to diet changes and environmental pollution associated with modern crop production. In this study we use shotgun metagenomics (median 8,326,092 sequences/sample) to demonstrate that exposure to modern crop production detrimentally affects cecal microbiota of sharp-tailed grouse (<i>Tympanuchus phasianellus</i>: 9 exposed, 18 unexposed and greater prairie chickens (<i>T. cupido</i>; 11, 11). Exposure to crop production had greater effect on microbiota richness (<i>t</i> = 6.675,<span> </span><i>P</i> < 0.001) and composition (PERMANOVA<span> </span><i>r</i><sup><i>2</i></sup> = 0.212,<span> </span><i>P</i> = 0.001) than did the host species (<i>t</i> = 4.762,<span> </span><i>P</i> < 0.001;<span> </span><i>r</i><sup><i>2</i></sup> = 0.070,<span> </span><i>P</i> = 0.001) or their interaction (<i>t</i> = 3.449;<span> </span><i>r</i><sup><i>2</i></sup> = 0.072, both<span> </span><i>P</i> = 0.001), whereas sex and age had no effect. Although microbiota richness was greater in exposed (<i>T. cupido</i><span> </span>chao1 = 152.8 ± 20.5;<span> </span><i>T. phasianellus</i><span> </span>115.3 ± 17.1) than in unexposed (102.9 ± 15.1 and 101.1 ± 17.2, respectively) birds, some beneficial bacteria dropped out of exposed birds' microbiota or declined and were replaced by potential pathogens. Exposed birds also had higher richness and load of virulome (mean ± standard deviation;<span> </span><i>T. cupido</i><span> </span>24.8 ± 10.0 and 10.1 ± 5.5, respectively;<span> </span><i>T. phasianellus</i><span> </span>13.4 ± 6.8/4.9 ± 2.8) and resistome (<i>T. cupido</i><span> </span>46.8 ± 11.7/28.9 ± 10.2,<span> </span><i>T. phasianellus</i><span> </span>38.3 ± 16.7/18.9 ± 14.2) than unexposed birds (<i>T. cupido</i><span> </span>virulome: 14.2 ± 13.5, 4.5 ± 4.2;<span> </span><i>T. cupido</i><span> </span>resistome: 31.6 ± 20.2 and 13.1 ± 12.0;<span> </span><i>T. phasianellus</i><span> </span>virulome: 5.2 ± 4.7 and 1.4 ± 1.5;<span> </span><i>T. phasianellus</i><span> </span>resistome: 13.7 ± 16.1 and 4.0 ± 6.4).</p></div></div>
application/pdf
10.1016/j.envpol.2022.119418
en
Elsevier
Exposure to crop production alters cecal prokaryotic microbiota, inflates virulome and resistome in wild prairie grouse
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