Gut microbial community in proboscis monkeys ( Nasalis larvatus ): implications for effects of geographical and social factors

Jose, Lilian, Lee, Wanyi, Hanya, Goro, Tuuga, Augustine, Goossens, Benoit ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2360-4643, Tangah, Joseph, Matsuda, Ikki and Kumar, Vijay Subbiah 2024. Gut microbial community in proboscis monkeys ( Nasalis larvatus ): implications for effects of geographical and social factors. Royal Society Open Science 11 (7) , 231756. 10.1098/rsos.231756

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Abstract

Recent technological advances have enabled comprehensive analyses of the previously uncharacterized microbial community in the gastrointestinal tracts of numerous animal species; however, the gut microbiota of several species, such as the endangered proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) examined in this study, remains poorly understood. Our study sought to establish the first comprehensive data on the gut microbiota of free-ranging foregut-fermenting proboscis monkeys and to determine how their microbiota are affected locally by environmental factors, i.e. geographical distance, and social factors, i.e. the number of adult females within harem groups and the number of adults and subadults within non-harem groups, in a riverine forest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing of 264 faecal samples collected from free-ranging proboscis monkeys, we demonstrated the trend that their microbial community composition is not particularly distinctive compared with other foregut- and hindgut-fermenting primates. The microbial alpha diversity was higher in larger groups and individuals inhabiting diverse vegetation (i.e. presumed to have a diverse diet). For microbial beta diversity, some measures were significant, showing higher values with larger geographical distances between samples. These results suggest that social factors such as increased inter-individual interactions, which can occur with larger groups, as well as physical distances between individuals or differences in dietary patterns, may affect the gut microbial communities.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: open-access
Publisher:	The Royal Society
ISSN:	2054-5703
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 July 2024
Date of Acceptance:	22 May 2024
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2024 09:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/170887

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