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Associations between Afrotropieal bats, parasites, and microbial symbionts

HL Lutz, EW Jackson, View ORCID ProfileCW Dick, PW Webala, WS Babyesiza, Peterhans JC Kerbis, TC Demos, BD Patterson, JA Gilbert
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/340109
HL Lutz
Department of Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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EW Jackson
Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
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CW Dick
Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USADepartment of Biology, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA
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  • ORCID record for CW Dick
PW Webala
Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, Maasai Mara University, Narok, Kenya
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WS Babyesiza
Department of Wildlife Management, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania
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Peterhans JC Kerbis
Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USADepartment of Biological Sciences, Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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TC Demos
Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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BD Patterson
Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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JA Gilbert
Department of Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA
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ABSTRACT

Bats are among the most diverse animals on the planet and harbor numerous bacterial, viral, and eukaryotic symbionts. The interplay between bacterial community composition and parasitism in bats is not well understood and may have important implications for studies of similar systems. Here we present a comprehensive survey of dipteran and haemosporidian parasites, and characterize the gut, oral, and skin microbiota of Afrotropical bats. We identify significant correlations between bacterial community composition of the skin and dipteran ectoparasite prevalence across four major bat lineages, as well as links between the oral microbiome and malarial parasitism, suggesting a potential mechanism for host selection and vector-borne disease transmission in bats. Mirroring recent studies of host-microbiome co-speciation in mammals, we find a weak correlation between chiropteran phylogenetic distances and bacterial community dissimilarity across the three anatomical sites, suggesting that host environment is more important than shared ancestry in shaping the composition of associated bacterial communities.

SIGNIFICANCE Animals rely on bacterial symbionts for numerous biological functions, such as digestion and immune system development. Increasing evidence suggests that host-associated microbes may play a role in mediating parasite burden. This study is the first to provide a comprehensive survey of bacterial symbionts from multiple anatomical sites across a broad taxonomic range of Afrotropical bats, demonstrating significant associations between the bat microbiome and parasite prevalence. This study provides a framework for future approaches to systems biology of host-symbiont interactions across broad taxonomic scales, which will allow for the recognition of the interdependence between microbial symbionts and vertebrate health in the study of wild organisms and their natural history.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 18, 2018.
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Associations between Afrotropieal bats, parasites, and microbial symbionts
HL Lutz, EW Jackson, CW Dick, PW Webala, WS Babyesiza, Peterhans JC Kerbis, TC Demos, BD Patterson, JA Gilbert
bioRxiv 340109; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/340109
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Associations between Afrotropieal bats, parasites, and microbial symbionts
HL Lutz, EW Jackson, CW Dick, PW Webala, WS Babyesiza, Peterhans JC Kerbis, TC Demos, BD Patterson, JA Gilbert
bioRxiv 340109; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/340109

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