Exploring the avian gut microbiota: current trends and future directions

Birds represent a diverse and evolutionarily successful lineage, occupying a wide range of niches throughout the world. Like all vertebrates, avians harbor diverse communities of microorganisms within their guts, which collectively fulfill crucial roles in providing the host with nutrition and prote...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in microbiology 2015-07, Vol.6, p.673-673
Main Authors: Waite, David W, Taylor, Michael W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
16S rRNA
avian
bird
Metagenomics
Microbiology
microbiota
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Summary:Birds represent a diverse and evolutionarily successful lineage, occupying a wide range of niches throughout the world. Like all vertebrates, avians harbor diverse communities of microorganisms within their guts, which collectively fulfill crucial roles in providing the host with nutrition and protection from pathogens. Across the field of avian microbiology knowledge is extremely uneven, with several species accounting for an overwhelming majority of all microbiological investigations. These include agriculturally important birds, such as chickens and turkeys, as well as birds of evolutionary or conservation interest. In our previous study we attempted the first meta-analysis of the avian gut microbiota, using 16S rRNA gene sequences obtained from a range of publicly available data sets. We have now extended our analysis to explore the microbiology of several key species in detail, to consider the avian microbiota within the context of what is known about other vertebrates, and to identify key areas of interest in avian microbiology for future study.
ISSN:1664-302X
1664-302X
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2015.00673