Meeting Abstract
Land use change can decrease animal biodiversity, but its impact on their gut microbiome is not well understood. We sought to quantify this effect on bird microbiomes in a Costa Rican landscape that contained habitats ranging from pristine forests to coffee plantations using 16S rRNA sequencing. In this landscape, we collected 346 fresh fecal samples from six common species of insectivorous birds (clay-coloured thrush, Turdus grayi; Swainson’s thrush, Catharus ustulatus; orange-billed nightingale-thrush, Catharus aurantiirostris; yellow warbler, Dendroica petechia; rufous-capped warbler, Basileuterus rufifrons; and buff-throated saltator, Saltator maximus) at sites across a land use gradient. The most dominant bacterial phyla across the six species of birds included Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes. Diversity indices showed no significant difference among habitat types or bird species identity, suggesting that land use change or host identity may not affect gut microbial diversity. However, microbial species composition was significantly associated with bird species identity, with four of the six bird species (yellow warbler, buff-throated saltator, Swainson’s thrush, and clay-coloured thrush) having distinct patterns. In addition, we found significant clustering of microbial communities by habitat type in two of the six birds, suggesting that the effect of land use change on bird gut microbes may be host-specific. Overall, our data suggest that both host species identity and habitat type can influence gut microbial composition, but that host identity may affect microbial composition more strongly than habitat type.
