Factors Determining the Gastrointestinal Microbiota in Chinstrap Penguin Chicks

Abstract

The gastrointestinal microbiota is composed by a complex community which depends of different factors, external/ internal and environmental/genetics. We carried out a cross-fostering experiment in nesting chinstrap penguins. In experimental nests one of the chicks was exchanged at seven days old with a chick from another nest with the same hatching date. In control nests, chicks were briefly removed and put back in the nest again. After twenty days we collected cloacal samples of adults and chicks and carried out sequencing of the V1-V3 region of the 16S rDNA by Illumina. We did not find any effect of chick manipulation in bacteria diversity as no differences were found between experimental and control chicks. We found differences in bacteria diversity between adults and biological chicks but not with adopted chicks. We did not find significant relationships of bacteria diversity between chicks reared in the same nest but from different parents and either between siblings reared in different nests. Moreover, we did not find significant relationships between parents and the biological chicks or the adopted chicks. This suggests that chick bacteria diversity is not dependent of the parents or external factors and should be dependent of chick intrinsic factors