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. 2018 Jul 25;6(3):76.
doi: 10.3390/microorganisms6030076.

A Comparative Study on the Faecal Bacterial Community and Potential Zoonotic Bacteria of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) in Northeast Greenland, Northwest Greenland and Norway

Emilie U Andersen-Ranberg  1   2 , Christopher J Barnes  3 , Linett Rasmussen  4 , Alejandro Salgado-Flores  5 , Carsten Grøndahl  6 , Jesper B Mosbacher  7 , Anders J Hansen  8 , Monica Alterskjær Sundset  9 , Niels Martin Schmidt  10 , Christian Sonne  11
Affiliations

A Comparative Study on the Faecal Bacterial Community and Potential Zoonotic Bacteria of Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) in Northeast Greenland, Northwest Greenland and Norway

Emilie U Andersen-Ranberg et al. Microorganisms. .

Abstract

Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) are ruminants adapted to a high-fibre diet. There is increasing interest in the role that gut microbes play in the digestion and utilization of these specialized diets but only limited data available on the gut microbiome of high-Arctic animals. In this study, we metabarcoded the 16S rRNA region of faecal samples from muskoxen of Northeast Greenland, Northwest Greenland and Norway, and quantified the effects of physiological and temporal factors on bacterial composition. We found significant effects of body mass, year of sampling and location on the gut bacterial communities of North East Greenland muskoxen. These effects were however dwarfed by the effects of location, emphasizing the importance of the local ecology on the gut bacterial community. Habitat alterations and rising temperatures may therefore have a considerable impact on muskoxen health and reproductive success. Moreover, muskoxen are hunted and consumed in Greenland, Canada and Alaska; therefore, this study also screened for potential zoonoses of food safety interest. A total of 13 potentially zoonotic genera were identified, including the genera Erysipelothrix and Yersinia implicated in recent mass die-offs of the muskoxen themselves.

Keywords: 16S rRNA; Arctic; Ovibos moschatus; faecal bacterial community; metabarcoding; muskoxen; zoonoses.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Distribution of muskoxen worldwide and indication of sampling sites. Green triangle: Dundas Village (“NWGM,” n = 4 faecal samples), red triangle: Zackenberg Research Station (“NEGM,” n = 35), black triangle: Tromsø, Ryøya (“NM,” n = 3), modified from [1]; (b) Muskoxen by the foot of Zackenberg mountain, near Zackenberg Research Station, Photo: Lars Holst Hansen.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Non-metric multidimensional scaling plot of the bacterial microbiome from muskox faecal samples, produced by 16S DNA metabarcoding. Colour represents the year of sampling, demonstrating clear separation between sampling times.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Boxplot of OTU richness between NEGM, NM and NWGM. Line within boxes presents the median; (b) Venn diagram depicting the shared number of OTUs between North East Greenland muskoxen (NEGM), Norwegian muskoxen (NM) and North West Greenland muskoxen (NWGM).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Taxonomic bacterial composition by relative abundance of (a) phylum; (b) genus.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Heat map trees of the bacterial community detected by 16S-rDNA metagenomic sequencing from faecal samples of Norwegian muskoxen (NM), Northeast Greenland muskoxen (NEGM) and Northwest Greenland muskoxen (NWGM). (Left) Taxonomic assignments of branches, kingdom—family level; (Right) heat map trees for each location sampled. Note the color-coded density scales on the right.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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