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Volume 170, Issue 9

Seasonal variation in the stomach microbiota of two sympatrically breeding penguin species at Signy Island, South Orkney Islands Open Access

Abstract

The gut microbiomes of Antarctic penguins are important for the fitness of the host birds and their chicks. The compositions of microbial communities in Antarctic penguin guts are strongly associated with the birds’ diet, physiological adaptation and phylogeny. Whilst seasonal changes in food resources, distribution and population parameters of Antarctic penguins have been well addressed, little research is available on the stability or variability of penguin stomach microbiomes over time. Here, we focused on two penguin species breeding sympatrically in the maritime Antarctic and analysed their stomach contents to assess whether penguin gut microbiota differed over three austral summer breeding seasons. We used a high-throughput DNA sequencing approach to study bacterial diversity in stomach regurgitates of Adélie () and chinstrap () penguins that have a similar foraging regime on Signy Island (South Orkney Islands). Our data revealed significant differences in bacterial alpha and beta diversity between the study seasons. We also identified bacterial genera that were significantly associated with specific breeding seasons, diet compositions, chick-rearing stages and sampling events. This study provides a baseline for establishing future monitoring of penguin gut microbiomes in a rapidly changing environment.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): Antarctic krill , diet , microbiome , penguins , sea ice and seasonal variation
© 2024 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institution.
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2024-09-26
2024-10-14
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/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001503
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Seasonal variation in the stomach microbiota of two sympatrically breeding Pygoscelis penguin species at Signy Island, South Orkney Islands
Microbiology 170, 001503 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.001503
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001503
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001503
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