The number of social contacts of mammals is positively correlated with the diversity of their gut microbes. There is some evidence that sociality also affects microbes in the respiratory tract. We tested whether the airway microbiota of cetacean species differ depending on the whales' level of sociality. We sampled the blow of blue (Balaenoptera musculus), grey (Eschrichtius robustus), humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) and long‐finned pilot whales (PWs) (Globicephala melas) and analysed the blow microbiota by barcode tag sequencing targeting the V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. Humpback whales (HWs) show higher levels of sociality than blue (BW) and grey (GW), while PWs are the most gregarious among the four species. The blow samples of the HWs showed the highest richness and diversity. HWs were also the only species with a species‐specific clustering of their microbial community composition and a relatively large number of core taxa. Therefore, we conclude that it cannot be sociality alone shaping the diversity and composition of airway microbiota. We suggest the whale species' lung volume and size of the plume of exhaled air as an additional factor impacting the transmission potential of blow microbiota from one individual whale to another.

中文翻译：

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社交活动是否会导致鲸类气道微生物群的多样性和组成？

哺乳动物的社会交往数量与其肠道微生物的多样性呈正相关。有证据表明，社交也影响呼吸道中的微生物。我们测试了鲸类物种的呼吸道微生物群是否根据鲸鱼的社交程度而有所不同。我们采样了蓝色（Balaenoptera musculus），灰色（Eschrichtiusrobustus），座头鲸（Megaptera novaeangliae）和长鳍领航鲸（PWs）（Globicephala melas）的打击。）并通过针对细菌16S rRNA基因V4区的条形码标签测序分析了打击微生物群。座头鲸（HWs）的社交活动水平高于蓝色（BW）和灰色（GW），而PW在这四个物种中是最合群的。硬件的打击样本显示出最高的丰富度和多样性。硬汉也是唯一具有其微生物群落组成的特定物种集群和相对大量核心类群的物种。因此，我们得出结论，不仅仅是影响气道微生物群多样性和组成的社会性。我们建议鲸鱼物种的肺部体积和呼出气流的羽流大小是影响打击微生物从一种鲸鱼向另一只鲸鱼传播的另一个因素。