Movement ecology and sex are linked to barn owl microbial community composition

Ammon Corl*, Motti Charter, Gabe Rozman, Sivan Toledo, Sondra Turjeman, Pauline L. Kamath, Wayne M. Getz, Ran Nathan, Rauri C.K. Bowie

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

The behavioural ecology of host species is likely to affect their microbial communities, because host sex, diet, physiology, and movement behaviour could all potentially influence their microbiota. We studied a wild population of barn owls (Tyto alba) and collected data on their microbiota, movement, diet, size, coloration, and reproduction. The composition of bacterial species differed by the sex of the host and female owls had more diverse bacterial communities than their male counterparts. The abundance of two families of bacteria, Actinomycetaceae and Lactobacillaceae, also varied between the sexes, potentially as a result of sex differences in hormones and immunological function, as has previously been found with Lactobacillaceae in the microbiota of mice. Male and female owls did not differ in the prey they brought to the nest, which suggests that dietary differences are unlikely to underlie the differences in their microbiota. The movement behaviour of the owls was associated with the host microbiota in both males and females because owls that moved further from their nest each day had more diverse bacterial communities than owls that stayed closer to their nests. This novel result suggests that the movement ecology of hosts can impact their microbiota, potentially on the basis of their differential encounters with new bacterial species as the hosts move and forage across the landscape. Overall, we found that many aspects of the microbial community are correlated with the behavioural ecology of the host and that data on the microbiota can aid in generating new hypotheses about host behaviour.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)1358-1371
Number of pages14
JournalMolecular Ecology
Volume29
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Apr 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
All field work was conducted using research permit 2017/41606 provided to M. Charter by the Israel National Protection Authority and approved by the ethics committee of the Hebrew University (permit NS‐16‐14801‐2) and University of California, Berkeley (AUP‐2016‐04‐8665). Thanks to Candace Wang, Hannah Newcombe, and Lydia Smith for help in the laboratory, and to Yoav Barton, Carla Cicero and Carol Spencer for help with importing samples. This work was supported by a NSF Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Grant No. 1617982, BSF Grant 2015904, ISF Grant 965/15, and the Minerva Center for Movement Ecology.

Funding Information:
All field work was conducted using research permit 2017/41606 provided to M. Charter by the Israel National Protection Authority and approved by the ethics committee of the Hebrew University (permit NS-16-14801-2) and University of California, Berkeley (AUP-2016-04-8665). Thanks to Candace Wang, Hannah Newcombe, and Lydia Smith for help in the laboratory, and to Yoav Barton, Carla Cicero and Carol Spencer for help with importing samples. This work was supported by a NSF Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Grant No. 1617982, BSF Grant 2015904, ISF Grant 965/15, and the Minerva Center for Movement Ecology.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Keywords

  • Tyto alba
  • behavioural ecology
  • microbiome
  • movement ecology
  • sexual differentiation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Movement ecology and sex are linked to barn owl microbial community composition'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this