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.