Essential Site Maintenance: Authorea-powered sites will be updated circa 15:00-17:00 Eastern on Tuesday 5 November.
There should be no interruption to normal services, but please contact us at [email protected] in case you face any issues.

loading page

Range-wide assessment of the Tasmanian devil gut microbiome
  • +2
  • Meadhbh Molloy,
  • Elspeth McLennan,
  • Samantha Fox,
  • Katherine Belov,
  • Carolyn Hogg
Meadhbh Molloy
George Mason University
Author Profile
Elspeth McLennan
The University of Sydney
Author Profile
Samantha Fox
Tasmania Department of Natural Resources and Environment
Author Profile
Katherine Belov
The University of Sydney
Author Profile
Carolyn Hogg
The University of Sydney

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile

Abstract

The gut microbiome is an important component of host health and function and is influenced by internal and external factors such as host phylogeny, age, diet, and environment. Monitoring the gut microbiome has become an increasingly important management tool for wild populations of threatened species. The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is the largest extant carnivorous marsupial from the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Devils are currently endangered due to devil facial tumour disease. Previous assessments have shown differences between captive and wild devil gut microbiomes and changes during translocations. However, wild gut microbiome variability across Tasmania and the drivers of these differences are not well understood. We conducted a range-wide assessment of gut microbiomes at ten locations across Tasmania, via 16S rRNA sequencing, and tested the influence of diet (12S sequencing), location, sex, and cohort. We show that the five most abundant phylum and genera were consistent across all ten locations. Location, cohort, and sex impacted bacterial richness, but location did not impact diversity. While there were differences in diet across the state, there was no strong evidence of differences between juveniles and adults, nor between males and females. Contrary to our hypothesis, diet only explained a small amount of variation seen in microbial communities. We suspect that other variables, such as environmental factors and immune system development may have a stronger influence on gut microbiome variability. Adjustments to dietary supplementation is not necessary when preparing devils for translocation to different sites. Future research should prioritize collecting environmental samples for microbial analysis and integrating metabolomics to elucidate functional differences associated with Tasmanian devil gut microbiome variability.