Microbiota of little penguins and short-tailed shearwaters during development

Meagan L Dewar; John P Y Arnould; Theo R Allnutt; Tamsyn Crowley; Lutz Krause; John Reynolds; Peter Dann; Stuart C Smith

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0183117

Microbiota of little penguins and short-tailed shearwaters during development

PLoS One. 2017 Aug 14;12(8):e0183117. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183117. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Meagan L Dewar^{1

2}, John P Y Arnould², Theo R Allnutt³, Tamsyn Crowley³, Lutz Krause^{4

5}, John Reynolds^{6

7}, Peter Dann⁸, Stuart C Smith¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia.
² School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia.
³ Bioinformatic Core Research Group, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Australia.
⁴ QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
⁵ University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Translational Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
⁶ Deakin Biostatistics Unit, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia.
⁷ Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
⁸ Research Department, Phillip Island Nature Parks, Phillip Island, Australia.

Abstract

The establishment and early colonisation of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract has been recognised as a crucial stage in chick development, with pioneering microbial species responsible for influencing the development of the GI tract and influencing host health, fitness and disease status throughout life. Development of the microbiota in long lived seabirds is poorly understood. This study characterised the microbial composition of little penguin and short-tailed shearwater chicks throughout development, using Quantitative Real Time PCR (qPCR) and 16S rRNA sequencing. The results indicated that microbial development differed between the two seabird species with the short-tailed shearwater microbiota being relatively stable throughout development whilst significant fluctuations in the microbial composition and an upward trend in the abundance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were observed in the little penguin. When the microbial composition of adults and chicks was compared, both species showed low similarity in microbial composition, indicating that the adult microbiota may have a negligible influence over the chick's microbiota.

MeSH terms

Animals
Biodiversity
Charadriiformes / growth & development*
Charadriiformes / microbiology*
Microbiota*
Phylogeny
Principal Component Analysis
Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
Spheniscidae / growth & development*
Spheniscidae / microbiology*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by funding from Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, Centre for Molecular and Medical Research (Deakin University), Life and Environmental Sciences (Deakin University) and Phillip Island Nature Parks. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.