Dataset Information

Gut microbes limit growth in house sparrow nestlings (Passer domesticus) but not through limitations in digestive capacity.

ABSTRACT: Recent research often lauds the services and beneficial effects of host-associated microbes on animals. However, hosting these microbes may come at a cost. For example, germ-free and antibiotic-treated birds generally grow faster than their conventional counterparts. In the wild, juvenile body size is correlated with survival, so hosting a microbiota may incur a fitness cost. Avian altricial nestlings represent an interesting study system in which to investigate these interactions, given that they exhibit the fastest growth rates among vertebrates, and growth is limited by their digestive capacity. We investigated whether reduction and restructuring of the microbiota by antibiotic treatment would: (i) increase growth and food conversion efficiency in nestling house sparrows (Passer domesticus); (ii) alter aspects of gut anatomy or function (particularly activities of digestive carbohydrases and their regulation in response to dietary change); and (iii) whether there were correlations between relative abundances of microbial taxa, digestive function and nestling growth. Antibiotic treatment significantly increased growth and food conversion efficiency in nestlings. Antibiotics did not alter aspects of gut anatomy that we considered but depressed intestinal maltase activity. There were no significant correlations between abundances of microbial taxa and aspects of host physiology. Overall, we conclude that microbial-induced growth limitation in developing birds is not driven by interactions with digestive capacity. Rather, decreased energetic and material costs of immune function or beneficial effects from microbes enriched under antibiotic treatment may underlie these effects. Understanding the costs and tradeoffs of hosting gut microbial communities represents an avenue of future research.

SUBMITTER: Kohl KD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5873389 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Gut microbes limit growth in house sparrow nestlings (Passer domesticus) but not through limitations in digestive capacity.

Kohl Kevin D KD Brun Antonio A Bordenstein Seth R SR Caviedes-Vidal Enrique E Karasov William H WH

Integrative zoology 20180301 2

Recent research often lauds the services and beneficial effects of host-associated microbes on animals. However, hosting these microbes may come at a cost. For example, germ-free and antibiotic-treated birds generally grow faster than their conventional counterparts. In the wild, juvenile body size is correlated with survival, so hosting a microbiota may incur a fitness cost. Avian altricial nestlings represent an interesting study system in which to investigate these interactions, given that th ...[more]

PMID: 29168619

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Project description:Under different environmental conditions, hybridization between the same species might result in different patterns of genetic admixture. Particularly, species pairs with large distribution ranges and long evolutionary history may have experienced several independent hybridization events over time in different zones of overlap. In birds, the diverse hybrid populations of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the Spanish sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis) provide a striking example. Throughout their range of sympatry, these two species do not regularly interbreed; however, a stabilized hybrid form (Passer italiae) exists on the Italian Peninsula and on several Mediterranean islands. The spatial distribution pattern on the Eurasian continent strongly contrasts the situation in North Africa, where house sparrows and Spanish sparrows occur in close vicinity of phenotypically intermediate populations across a broad mosaic hybrid zone. In this study, we investigate patterns of divergence and admixture among the two parental species, stabilized and nonstabilized hybrid populations in Italy and Algeria based on a mitochondrial marker, a sex chromosomal marker, and 12 microsatellite loci. In Algeria, despite strong spatial and temporal separation of urban early-breeding house sparrows and hybrids and rural late-breeding Spanish sparrows, we found strong genetic admixture of mitochondrial and nuclear markers across all study populations and phenotypes. That pattern of admixture in the North African hybrid zone is strikingly different from i) the Iberian area of sympatry where we observed only weak asymmetrical introgression of Spanish sparrow nuclear alleles into local house sparrow populations and ii) the very homogenous Italian sparrow population where the mitogenome of one parent (P. domesticus) and the Z-chromosomal marker of the other parent (P. hispaniolensis) are fixed. The North African sparrow hybrids provide a further example of enhanced hybridization along with recent urbanization and anthropogenic land-use changes in a mosaic landscape.

Dataset Information

Gut microbes limit growth in house sparrow nestlings (Passer domesticus) but not through limitations in digestive capacity.

Publications

Gut microbes limit growth in house sparrow nestlings (Passer domesticus) but not through limitations in digestive capacity.

Similar Datasets

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