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Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?

The behavioral video recordings of the gray-backed shrike Lanius tephronotus revealed that parent birds eat the feces produced by their nestlings. “Parental nutrition hypothesis” attributes the origin of this behavior to nutrition-recovery and cost-saving, respectively. However, the presence of usab...

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Autores principales: Hu, Jie, Zeng, Jingyuan, Shi, Yurou, Song, Sen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9892794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36743228
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoac005
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author Hu, Jie
Zeng, Jingyuan
Shi, Yurou
Song, Sen
author_facet Hu, Jie
Zeng, Jingyuan
Shi, Yurou
Song, Sen
author_sort Hu, Jie
collection PubMed
description The behavioral video recordings of the gray-backed shrike Lanius tephronotus revealed that parent birds eat the feces produced by their nestlings. “Parental nutrition hypothesis” attributes the origin of this behavior to nutrition-recovery and cost-saving, respectively. However, the presence of usable nutrients in the nestlings’ feces is unknown because of traditional technology. In this study, we analyzed all the metabolites and the variations in the diversity and content of microbes in the feces of gray-backed shrike nestlings. We aimed to report the changes in microbes and metabolites with the age of nestlings and point out that the parent birds that eat the feces may gain potential nutrition benefits. The results showed that the relative abundances of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidota, changed significantly when the nestlings were 6 days old. The relative abundances of 6 probiotics, which are involved in digestion, metabolism, and immunity-related physiological functions, decreased in the nestlings’ feces gradually with age; therefore, these probiotics may be obtained by parent birds upon ingestion of the feces of young nestlings. Among the metabolites that were detected, 20 were lipids and some had a role in anti-parasitic functions and wound healing; however, their relative contents decreased with age. These beneficial substances in the nestlings’ feces may stimulate the parents to swallow the feces. Moreover, there were many aromatic metabolites in the newly hatched nestlings’ feces, but the content of bitter metabolites increased as they grew up. Therefore, our results are in accordance with the nutritional hypothesis.
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spelling pubmed-98927942023-02-02 Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes? Hu, Jie Zeng, Jingyuan Shi, Yurou Song, Sen Curr Zool Articles The behavioral video recordings of the gray-backed shrike Lanius tephronotus revealed that parent birds eat the feces produced by their nestlings. “Parental nutrition hypothesis” attributes the origin of this behavior to nutrition-recovery and cost-saving, respectively. However, the presence of usable nutrients in the nestlings’ feces is unknown because of traditional technology. In this study, we analyzed all the metabolites and the variations in the diversity and content of microbes in the feces of gray-backed shrike nestlings. We aimed to report the changes in microbes and metabolites with the age of nestlings and point out that the parent birds that eat the feces may gain potential nutrition benefits. The results showed that the relative abundances of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidota, changed significantly when the nestlings were 6 days old. The relative abundances of 6 probiotics, which are involved in digestion, metabolism, and immunity-related physiological functions, decreased in the nestlings’ feces gradually with age; therefore, these probiotics may be obtained by parent birds upon ingestion of the feces of young nestlings. Among the metabolites that were detected, 20 were lipids and some had a role in anti-parasitic functions and wound healing; however, their relative contents decreased with age. These beneficial substances in the nestlings’ feces may stimulate the parents to swallow the feces. Moreover, there were many aromatic metabolites in the newly hatched nestlings’ feces, but the content of bitter metabolites increased as they grew up. Therefore, our results are in accordance with the nutritional hypothesis. Oxford University Press 2022-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9892794/ /pubmed/36743228 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoac005 Text en © The Author(s) (2022). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Editorial Office, Current Zoology. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Articles
Hu, Jie
Zeng, Jingyuan
Shi, Yurou
Song, Sen
Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
title Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
title_full Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
title_fullStr Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
title_full_unstemmed Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
title_short Are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
title_sort are microbes and metabolites influencing the parental consumption of nestlings’ feces in gray-backed shrikes?
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9892794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36743228
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoac005
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