The temporal variations of gut microbiota composition in overwintering Hooded Crane (Grus monacha) at Lake Shengjin, Anhui Province

肠道微生物对于维持动物消化道内环境的稳定具有重要意义，而肠道微生物菌群结构也受寄主食物成份等外界环境因素的影响.研究动物肠道微生物菌群结构可以更好地了解动物生活状况.以升金湖越冬白头鹤的粪便作为研究对象，以微生物16S rRNA的 V3~V4区作为标记基因，进行高通量测序，分析升金湖越冬不同时期白头鹤肠道菌群结构的差异性.研究结果表明：升金湖越冬期不同时期白头鹤粪便样品中微生物多样性指数如香农威纳多样性指数和辛普森指数无显著性差异.但是越冬期不同阶段的粪便样品中菌群组成存在差异，主要包括：在门分类水平，越冬前期拟杆菌门含量较高，厚壁菌门含量较中后期低；越冬中期放线菌门含量较高；越冬后期变形菌门含量较高.在属分类水平，相对于其他两个时期，越冬前期普氏菌属（Prevotella）含量较高，越冬中期杆菌属（Lysinibacillus）含量较高，越冬后期梭菌属（Clostridium）含量较高，并且普氏菌属含量从越冬前期到中期、再到后期有明显的下降趋势，而梭菌属含量从越冬前期到中期、再到后期有明显的升高趋势.这些结果表明不同越冬时期白头鹤肠道菌群组成不同，越冬期不同阶段的食物变化可能作为一个影响因素.;The gastrointestinal microbiome plays a significant role in maintaining the stability of gastrointestinal environment of animals, and at the same time the composition of gastrointestinal microbial communities is also influenced by external environment such as diets. Studies on the gut microbiota structure can better understand the ecological conditions of animals. In this study, a total of 9 faeces samples were collected noninvasively from overwintering Hooded Cranes (Grus monacha) at Lake Shengjin, Anhui Province. Through high-throughput sequencing of V3-V4 regions of 16S rRNA of microbiome, there are 337447 reads and 708 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs). The OTU abundance reached the highest in the early wintering period, clustering 586 OTUs with average 323 OTUs. A total of 20 bacterial phyla and 201 genera were identified in the early wintering period, representing 175 genera from 15 bacterial phyla in the mid-wintering period. A total of 18 bacterial phyla with 182 genera were identified in the late wintering period. The results showed that the microbial diversity index such as Shannon-Wiener index and Simpson index had no significant differences in fecal samples of different wintering periods at Lake Shengjin. However, microbial composition had certain differences among three periods. At the microbial phylum level, the phyla Firmicutes (14.2%), Cyanobacteria (34.5%), Bacteroidetes (28.2%) were predominated in the early wintering period, and the phyla Firmicutes (40.4%), Actinobacteria (44.2%) and Proteobacteria (10%) were predominated in the mid-wintering period, while the phyla Firmicutes (43.2%) and Proteobacteria (31%) were predominated in the late wintering period. At the genus level, compared with the other two wintering periods, the amount of Clostridium was higher in the late wintering period and the amount of Prevotella decreased distinctly from the early to the middle-late wintering periods, while the amount of Clostridium increased distinctly from the early to the middle-late wintering periods. The variation of composition of gastrointestinal microbial may be explained by changes of diets of the Hooded Cranes in the wintering period. The study shed some light on overwintering ecology of Hooded Cranes.