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Enterotypes of the Gut Microbial Community and Their Response to Plant Secondary Compounds in Plateau Pikas.

ABSTRACT: Animal gut microbiomes can be clustered into "enterotypes" characterized by an abundance of signature genera. The characteristic determinants, stability, and resilience of these community clusters remain poorly understood. We used plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) as a model and identified three enterotypes by 16S rDNA sequencing. Among the top 15 genera, 13 showed significantly different levels of abundance between the enterotypes combined with different microbial functions and distinct fecal short-chain fatty acids. We monitored changes in the microbial community associated with the transfer of plateau pikas from field to laboratory and observed that feeding them a single diet reduced microbial diversity, resulting in a single enterotype with an altered composition of the dominant bacteria. However, microbial diversity, an abundance of some changed dominant genera, and enterotypes were partially restored after adding swainsonine (a plant secondary compound found in the natural diet of plateau pikas) to the feed. These results provide strong evidence that gut microbial diversity and enterotypes are directly related to specific diet, thereby indicating that the formation of different enterotypes can help animals adapt to complex food conditions. Additionally, natural plant secondary compounds can maintain dominant bacteria and inter-individual differences of gut microbiota and promote the resilience of enterotypes in small herbivorous mammals.

SUBMITTER: Fan C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7563992 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Enterotypes of the Gut Microbial Community and Their Response to Plant Secondary Compounds in Plateau Pikas.

Fan Chao C Zhang Liangzhi L Fu Haibo H Liu Chuanfa C Li Wenjing W Cheng Qi Q Zhang He H Jia Shangang S Zhang Yanming Y

Microorganisms 20200828 9

Animal gut microbiomes can be clustered into "enterotypes" characterized by an abundance of signature genera. The characteristic determinants, stability, and resilience of these community clusters remain poorly understood. We used plateau pika (<i>Ochotona curzoniae</i>) as a model and identified three enterotypes by 16S rDNA sequencing. Among the top 15 genera, 13 showed significantly different levels of abundance between the enterotypes combined with different microbial functions and distinct ...[more]

PMID: 32872148

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Project description:Drought stress negatively impacts microbial activity, but the magnitude of stress responses is likely dependent on a diversity of belowground interactions. Populus trichocarpa individuals and no-plant bulk soils were exposed to extended drought (?0.03% gravimetric water content [GWC] after 12 days), rewet, and a 12-day "recovery" period to determine the effects of plant presence in mediating soil microbiome stability to water stress. Plant metabolomic analyses indicated that drought exposure increased host investment in C and N metabolic pathways (amino acids, fatty acids, phenolic glycosides) regardless of recovery. Several metabolites positively correlated with root-associated microbial alpha-diversity, but not those of soil communities. Soil bacterial community composition shifted with P. trichocarpa presence and with drought relative to irrigated controls, whereas soil fungal composition shifted only with plant presence. However, root fungal communities strongly shifted with drought, whereas root bacterial communities changed to a lesser degree. The proportion of bacterial water-stress opportunistic operational taxonomic units (OTUs) (enriched counts in drought) was high (?11%) at the end of drying phases and maintained after rewet and recovery phases in bulk soils, but it declined over time in soils with plants present. For root fungi, opportunistic OTUs were high at the end of recovery in drought treatments (?17% abundance), although relatively not responsive in soils, particularly planted soils (<0.5% abundance for sensitive or opportunistic). These data indicate that plants modulate soil and root-associated microbial drought responses via tight plant-microbe linkages during extreme drought scenarios, but trajectories after extreme drought vary with plant habitat and microbial functional groups.IMPORTANCE Climate change causes significant alterations in precipitation and temperature regimes that are predicted to become more extreme throughout the next century. Microorganisms are important members within ecosystems, and how they respond to these changing abiotic stressors has large implications for the functioning of ecosystems, the recycling of nutrients, and the health of the aboveground plant community. Drought stress negatively impacts microbial activity, but the magnitude of this stress response may be dependent on above- and belowground interactions. This study demonstrates that beneficial associations between plants and microbes can enhance tolerance to abiotic stress.

Dataset Information

Enterotypes of the Gut Microbial Community and Their Response to Plant Secondary Compounds in Plateau Pikas.

Publications

Enterotypes of the Gut Microbial Community and Their Response to Plant Secondary Compounds in Plateau Pikas.

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