Venomous Snakes Reveal Ecological and Phylogenetic Factors Influencing Variation in Gut and Oral Microbiomes

• DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.657754
• Publication Date: 2021-03-26T04:48:21Z
• Authors: Sierra N. Smith; Timothy J. Colston; Cameron D. Siler
• Keywords: Arboreal locomotion; Phylogenetic diversity

The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of vertebrates contains a series organs beginning with the mouth and ending anus or cloacal opening. Each organ represents unique environment for resident microorganisms. Due to their simple digestive anatomy, snakes are good models studying microbiome variation along GIT. Cloacal sampling captures majority microbial diversity found in GIT snakes—yet little is known about oral microbiota snakes. Most research on snake gut limited studies single species captive-bred individuals. It therefore remains unclear how host’s life history, diet, evolutionary history correlate differences composition within mouths guts wild We sampled communities from three Asian venomous utilized 16S rRNA inventories test if host phylogenetic ecological distinct compositions two body sites. These occupy disparate habitat types: marine, semi-arboreal, arboreal, our results suggest that both ecology phylogeny.