Variations in Gut Fungal Communities between Anser erythropus Wintering at Shengjin and Caizi Lakes,China

Abstract Background：Gut microbiota play major roles in host nutrition and metabolism, but can also cause serious diseases among animals and humans. Recent studies have focused on gut bacterial diversity in migratory waterbirds; however, little information about their gut fungal communities has been reported.Results: In this study, we investigated the gut fungal communities of Anser erythropus wintering at either Shengjin Lake or Caizi Lake, China, using high-throughput sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) gene region. The operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from the Shengjin Lake geese represented seven phyla and 27 classes; those from the Caizi Lake geese comprised seven phyla and 28 classes. Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Zygomycota, and Rozellomycota were the dominant gut fungal phyla. Gut fungal community composition showed dramatic differences between the two populations. The Shengjin Lake geese ate mainly Poaceae spp., whereas the Caizi Lake geese ate mainly Carex spp., suggesting that different diets may induce variation in gut fungal communities between these populations. Additionally, nine potentially pathogenic species were identified across all samples, and their relative abundances were significantly higher in the Shengjin Lake samples than the Caizi Lake samples.Conclusions: The results indicated that gut fungal community were significant differences between Anser erythropus wintering at Shengjin and Caizi Lakes. Between Caizi Lake and Shengjin Lake, the geese in our study group consumed food that differed in type and quality maybe lead the gut fungi varied markedly between the geese from each lake. These findings expand our knowledge of gut fungi in waterbirds and suggest that the gut fungal communities differed in two wintering populations of the same species. This study provides basic data for the composition and structure of gut fungi of wintering waterbirds, and we argue that more attention should be paid to investigating the pathogenic gut species of migratory waterbirds, which may increase disease risks for sympatric poultry as well as humans.