The gut microbiota of birds is known to be characterized for different species, although it may change with feeding items. In this study, we compared the gut microbiota of birds with different feeding behaviors in the same habitat. We collected fecal samples from three Arctic species, snow buntings Plectrophenax nivalis , sanderlings Calidris alba, and pink‐footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus that are phylogenetically quite distant in different families to evaluate effects of diet on gut microbiota. Also, we characterized the prevalence of fecal bacteria using the Illumina MiSeq platform to sequence bacterial 16S rRNA genes. Our NMDS results showed that fecal bacteria of snow buntings and sanderlings were significantly distant from those of pink‐footed geese. Although all three birds were occupied by three bacterial phyla, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes, dominant taxa still varied among the species. Our bacterial sequences showed that snow buntings and sanderlings were dominated by Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, while pink‐footed geese were dominated by Proteobacteria. In addition, the bacterial diversity in snow buntings and sanderlings was significantly higher than that in pink‐footed geese. Our results suggest that insectivorous feeding diet of snow buntings and sanderlings could be responsible for the similar bacterial communities between the two species despite the distant phylogenetic relationship. The distinctive bacterial community in pink‐footed geese was discussed to be related with their herbivorous diet.

中文翻译：

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三种北极候鸟物种粪便微生物群结构的种间比较。

众所周知，鸟类的肠道菌群具有不同物种的特征，尽管它可能随饲料种类而变化。在这项研究中，我们比较了在相同栖息地中具有不同饲养行为的鸟类的肠道菌群。我们收集了三种北极物种的粪便样本，这些雪种包括雪bun Plectrophenax nivalis，桑德林犬Calidris alba和粉红脚雁Anser brachyrhynchus在不同系谱上距离较远，以评估饮食对肠道菌群的影响。此外，我们使用Illumina MiSeq平台对细菌16S rRNA基因进行测序，表征了粪便细菌的流行。我们的NMDS结果表明，雪bun和桑德林的粪便细菌与粉红脚雁的粪便细菌相距甚远。尽管所有三只鸟都被三个细菌门，变形杆菌，硬毛虫和拟杆菌属占据，但优势种群仍在物种之间变化。我们的细菌序列显示，雪bun和三趾ling以肥大ute和拟杆菌为主导，而粉红色的鹅雁则以变形杆菌为主导。此外，雪bun和三趾ling中的细菌多样性显着高于粉红脚鹅。我们的研究结果表明，尽管有很远的系统发育关系，但雪sand和三趾ling的食虫性饮食可能是造成这两个物种相似细菌群落的原因。讨论了粉红色雁鹅中独特的细菌群落与其草食性饮食有关。