Scientists studied the feces of birds and found that when birds migrate, their gut bacteria change

Trillions of bacteria live in our intestines and play a vital role in our ability to digest food and fight disease

"We have seen in other animals that microbial communities may be affected by where their host lives

"This research shows that we can understand even the basic aspects of bird biology, such as migration, new and old technologies-fieldwork and bird breeding, migration, and overwintering habitats, radiotelemetry and new technologies for next-generation DNA sequencing, "Said Hackett, deputy curator of the Field Museum

When thousands of bird species migrate, Skene and her colleagues focused on only one species in this study: the Cortland warbler, one of the rarest birds in the world

Despite this, they are still rare in the bird world.

The researchers first conducted a field survey in the Bahamas, where they used recorded bird calls to attract Cortland warblers and installed miniature radio tracking devices for them

A few months later, when the birds were migrating from the Bahamas to Michigan, Skene and her colleagues used a large network of automatic radio towers called the Motus Wildlife Tracking System to locate them in the Bahamas.

Researchers collected nearly 200 bird feces samples, as well as samples from the same species of birds in the Bahamas and Michigan, and conducted genetic analysis of the bacteria present in the feces

Skene said: "One of the most important parts of this research is that we were able to capture birds in different parts of different annual cycles in different locations, and we made a one-to-one comparison of the same population and the same individual.

This study found that the microbiota of birds is different in different places, even within the same person, which can help scientists figure out how the microbiota of birds works

Skene also pointed out that the climate crisis may make the gut microbiota particularly important when animals are trying to survive in a changing environment

references:

"Repeated sampling of individuals reveals impact of tropical and temperate habitats on microbiota of a migratory bird" 28 September 2021, Molecular Ecology .