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Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Supplemental feeding of wildlife is a common practice often undertaken for recreational or management purposes, but it may have unintended consequences for animal health. Understanding cryptic effects of diet supplementation on the gut microbiomes of wild mammals is important to inform conservation...

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Autores principales: Couch, Claire E., Wise, Benjamin L., Scurlock, Brandon M., Rogerson, Jared D., Fuda, Rebecca K., Cole, Eric K., Szcodronski, Kimberly E., Sepulveda, Adam J., Hutchins, Patrick R., Cross, Paul C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8031386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33831062
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249521
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author Couch, Claire E.
Wise, Benjamin L.
Scurlock, Brandon M.
Rogerson, Jared D.
Fuda, Rebecca K.
Cole, Eric K.
Szcodronski, Kimberly E.
Sepulveda, Adam J.
Hutchins, Patrick R.
Cross, Paul C.
author_facet Couch, Claire E.
Wise, Benjamin L.
Scurlock, Brandon M.
Rogerson, Jared D.
Fuda, Rebecca K.
Cole, Eric K.
Szcodronski, Kimberly E.
Sepulveda, Adam J.
Hutchins, Patrick R.
Cross, Paul C.
author_sort Couch, Claire E.
collection PubMed
description Supplemental feeding of wildlife is a common practice often undertaken for recreational or management purposes, but it may have unintended consequences for animal health. Understanding cryptic effects of diet supplementation on the gut microbiomes of wild mammals is important to inform conservation and management strategies. Multiple laboratory studies have demonstrated the importance of the gut microbiome for extracting and synthesizing nutrients, modulating host immunity, and many other vital host functions, but these relationships can be disrupted by dietary perturbation. The well-described interplay between diet, the microbiome, and host health in laboratory and human systems highlights the need to understand the consequences of supplemental feeding on the microbiomes of free-ranging animal populations. This study describes changes to the gut microbiomes of wild elk under different supplemental feeding regimes. We demonstrated significant cross-sectional variation between elk at different feeding locations and identified several relatively low-abundance bacterial genera that differed between fed versus unfed groups. In addition, we followed four of these populations through mid-season changes in supplemental feeding regimes and demonstrated a significant shift in microbiome composition in a single population that changed from natural forage to supplementation with alfalfa pellets. Some of the taxonomic shifts in this population mirrored changes associated with ruminal acidosis in domestic livestock. We discerned no significant changes in the population that shifted from natural forage to hay supplementation, or in the populations that changed from one type of hay to another. Our results suggest that supplementation with alfalfa pellets alters the native gut microbiome of elk, with potential implications for population health.
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spelling pubmed-80313862021-04-14 Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Couch, Claire E. Wise, Benjamin L. Scurlock, Brandon M. Rogerson, Jared D. Fuda, Rebecca K. Cole, Eric K. Szcodronski, Kimberly E. Sepulveda, Adam J. Hutchins, Patrick R. Cross, Paul C. PLoS One Research Article Supplemental feeding of wildlife is a common practice often undertaken for recreational or management purposes, but it may have unintended consequences for animal health. Understanding cryptic effects of diet supplementation on the gut microbiomes of wild mammals is important to inform conservation and management strategies. Multiple laboratory studies have demonstrated the importance of the gut microbiome for extracting and synthesizing nutrients, modulating host immunity, and many other vital host functions, but these relationships can be disrupted by dietary perturbation. The well-described interplay between diet, the microbiome, and host health in laboratory and human systems highlights the need to understand the consequences of supplemental feeding on the microbiomes of free-ranging animal populations. This study describes changes to the gut microbiomes of wild elk under different supplemental feeding regimes. We demonstrated significant cross-sectional variation between elk at different feeding locations and identified several relatively low-abundance bacterial genera that differed between fed versus unfed groups. In addition, we followed four of these populations through mid-season changes in supplemental feeding regimes and demonstrated a significant shift in microbiome composition in a single population that changed from natural forage to supplementation with alfalfa pellets. Some of the taxonomic shifts in this population mirrored changes associated with ruminal acidosis in domestic livestock. We discerned no significant changes in the population that shifted from natural forage to hay supplementation, or in the populations that changed from one type of hay to another. Our results suggest that supplementation with alfalfa pellets alters the native gut microbiome of elk, with potential implications for population health. Public Library of Science 2021-04-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8031386/ /pubmed/33831062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249521 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Couch, Claire E.
Wise, Benjamin L.
Scurlock, Brandon M.
Rogerson, Jared D.
Fuda, Rebecca K.
Cole, Eric K.
Szcodronski, Kimberly E.
Sepulveda, Adam J.
Hutchins, Patrick R.
Cross, Paul C.
Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
title Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
title_full Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
title_fullStr Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
title_full_unstemmed Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
title_short Effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of Rocky Mountain elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
title_sort effects of supplemental feeding on the fecal bacterial communities of rocky mountain elk in the greater yellowstone ecosystem
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8031386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33831062
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249521
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