Gut bacterial composition of four leopard cat subpopulations in Beijing

doi:10.17520/biods.2022103

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims: The composition of gut microbiota of wild animals is most influenced by food types and genetic background. This study aimed to investigate gut bacterial composition of leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) and its influencing factors in Beijing.
Methods: In this study, fecal samples of leopard cat collected from Yunmengshan, Yunfengshan, Songshan and Baihuashan were analyzed by high-throughput sequencing on bacterial 16S rRNA hypervariable region of V3-V4.
Results: The results showed that the dominant flora of gut bacteria of leopard cat in phyla included Firmicutes (relative abundance 52.40%), Proteobacteria (25.18%), Actinobacteria (9.07%), Bacteroidetes (8.17%), and Fusobacteria (4.74%). The top 5 genera of bacteria with the highest abundance accounted for about 50% of the total abundance, which were Pseudomonas (13.37%), Blautia (11.20%), Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 (9.10%), Peptoclostridium (8.62%), and Lactobacillus (6.08%). There was no significant difference in gut bacterial abundance and β diversity among the leopard cat subpopulations in four sampling areas, but the ACE index and Chao 1 index in Songshan subpopulation were different from those in Yunmengshan and Yunfengshan.
Conclusion: Considering there was a disparity trend in genetic structure in Songshan subpopulation, and the climate types of the four areas and food composition of the leopard cat were highly similar, we postulated that the gut bacteria of leopard cat was mainly influenced by the genetic traits for local adaptation.

Key words: leopard cat, gut bacteria, subpopulation, high-throughput sequencing, Beijing

Fan Xia, Jing Yang, Jian Li, Yang Shi, Lixin Gai, Wenhua Huang, Jingwei Zhang, Nan Yang, Fuli Gao, Yingying Han, Weidong Bao. Gut bacterial composition of four leopard cat subpopulations in Beijing[J]. Biodiv Sci, 2022, 30(9): 22103.

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URL: https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/10.17520/biods.2022103

https://www.biodiversity-science.net/EN/Y2022/V30/I9/22103

Figures/Tables 9

Fig. 1 A map showing leopard cat sampling areas in Beijing for gut bacterial analysis

Fig. 2 Rarefaction curves of all samples for analysis of gut bacteria of leopard cat in Beijing. Each curve represents a sample and is marked with different color.

Table 1 Sequencing quality parameters in gut bacterial analysis of leopard cat in Beijing (average value). SS, Songshan; YM, Yunmengshan; YF, Yunfengshan; BH, Baihuashan.

亚种群 Subpopulation	Q20碱基百分比 Q20 (%)	Q30碱基百分比 Q30 (%)	GC碱基百分比 GC (%)	测序深度 Good’s coverage
松山 SS	94.32	91.52	53.749	0.999
云蒙山 YM	92.58	89.07	54.014	0.999
云峰山 YF	92.91	89.63	52.819	0.999
百花山 BH	91.69	88.12	53.125	0.999

Fig. 3 Venn diagram of the OTU numbers of gut bacteria of leopard cat at four sampling areas in Beijing. The ellipses of four colors in the figure represent four sampling areas. YM, Yunmengshan; YF, Yunfengshan; SS, Songshan; BH, Baihuashan. The numbers represent the unique or shared number of OTUs of the four sampling areas.

Fig. 4 The relative abundance of gut bacteria of leopard cat at four sampling areas in Beijing at the phylum level. The abscissa is the four sampling areas, and different colors represent the classification of bacteria at the phylum level. Full names of the four sampling areas see Fig. 3.

Fig. 5 The relative abundance of gut bacteria of leopard cat at four sampling areas in Beijing at genus level. Different colors represent the classification of bacteria at the genus level. Full names of the four sampling areas see Fig. 3.

Fig. 6 Differences in α-diversity of gut bacteria of leopard cat at four sampling areas in Beijing. * P < 0.05. Full names of the four sampling areas see Fig. 3.

Fig. 7 Analysis of gut bacteria distance based on non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) of leopard cat at four sampling areas in Beijing. In NMDS analysis, each point represents one sample, and the distance between points represents difference degree. In PCoA analysis, the closer the distance between the sample points is, the higher the similarity is. Full names of the four sampling areas see Fig. 3.

Fig. 8 LEfSe analysis of gut bacterial composition among three leopard cat subpopulations in Beijing. Figure A is the cluster evolutionary tree of gut bacteria of three leopard cat subpopulations, and figure B shows the LDA scores of various bacteria under different classification levels. Different colors indicate sampling areas with red for Songshan, green for Yunfengshan, and blue for Yunmengshan.

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