We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Out of the stable: Social disruption and concurrent shifts in the feral mare (Equus caballus) fecal microbiota.
- Authors
Vaziri, Grace J.; Jones, Maggie M.; Carr, Haley A.; Nuñez, Cassandra M. V.
- Abstract
The disruption of animals' symbiotic bacterial communities (their microbiota) has been associated with myriad factors including changes to the diet, hormone levels, and various stressors. The maintenance of healthy bacterial communities may be especially challenging for social species as their microbiotas are also affected by group membership, social relationships, microbial transfer between individuals, and social stressors such as increased competition and rank maintenance. We investigated the effects of increased social instability, as determined by the number of group changes made by females, on the microbiota in free‐living, feral horses (Equus caballus) on Shackleford Banks, a barrier island off the North Carolina coast. Females leaving their groups to join new ones had fecal microbial communities that were similarly diverse but compositionally different than those of females that did not change groups. Changing groups was also associated with the increased abundance of a several bacterial genera and families. These changes may be significant as horses are heavily dependent upon their microbial communities for nutrient absorption. Though we cannot identify the particular mechanism(s) driving these changes, to the best of our knowledge, ours is the first study to demonstrate an association between acute social perturbations and the microbiota in a free‐ranging mammal.
- Subjects
NORTH Carolina; HORSES; BARRIER islands; MICROBIAL communities; WILD horses; MARES
- Publication
Ecology & Evolution (20457758), 2023, Vol 13, Issue 5, p1
- ISSN
2045-7758
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/ece3.10079