DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The role of the gut microbiome in individual specialization and population-level niche partitioning

University Of Wyoming, Laramie WY

Investigators

Abstract

Wildlife affect society in positive and negative ways. For example, moose have economic and cultural value for hunters and for tourists, but overabundant populations of moose can destroy crops and endanger motorists. This project will examine how food availability affects moose population growth and decline and advance general understanding of the number of animals an area can support. Results will guide decisions about managing endangered, overabundant, and alien species. The researchers will work with state and local agencies in Wyoming to develop programs to monitor wildlife habitat and nutritional conditions. Results will be communicated to the public in partnership with the Wildlife Migration Initiative. The project will both advance training of an early career researcher and produce new tools to estimate food limitation for wildlife populations. These tools will be available to state management agencies throughout Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Washington. This project will characterize diet and the digestive physiology of moose across eight populations experiencing different levels of plant abundance. Investigators will measure abundance of forage plants along with levels of body fat and reproduction, which indicate how much forage is available. Fecal samples from each population will be used to quantify diet. DNA analyses of feces will identify individual moose and their gender. Measures of plant availability, body fat, reproduction and diet will demonstrate if moose adjust their diets when particular plants becomes scarce. Moose and other large herbivores are ruminants, relying on highly specialized guts that cultivate microbes to digest plant fibers and toxins that other animals cannot. The ability of moose to shift their diets when food becomes scarce may depend on the ability of their gut microbes to accommodate new diets. The alternate hypothesis that will be tested is that moose diets and their gut microbes are inherited and are resistant to changes in food availability. To answer these questions, microbial DNA found in feces will be used to quantify the relationship between gut microbes, the genetic relatedness of individual moose, and moose diets. Results of this project will advance understanding of how food supply drives population increase or decline.