An observational study of how diet affects the presence of oral microbiota in bats

Microbes in the oral cavity utilize exogenous nutrients taken in from their hosts to sustain themselves. As such, a more diverse diet will likely lead to a more diverse bacterial composition content. Oral swabs from bats of the species Dermanura tolteca and Myotis keaysi were taken in order to assess the diversity of the oral cavity between captive and wild individuals and between frugivorous and insectivorous species by culturing and comparing bacterial morpho species. The captive bats were found to have lower diversity of bacteria present than those in the wild and the frugivores were found to have a higher diversity of bacteria compared to the wild insectivores. In addition, captive bats carried a higher richness of pathogenic Staphylococcus bacteria compared to wild bats of the same species. It is likely that diet is a main contributing factor in this variance of bacterial diversity. Los microbios de la cavidad bucal utilizan nutrientes exógenos provenientes de los alimentos ingeridos por el animal. Una alimentación más diversa conduce a una mayor diversidad de bacterias. Recolecté hisopados orales de murciélagos de dos especies, Dermanura tolteca (cinco individuos en cautiverio y seis individuos silvestres) y Myotis keaysi (dos individuos silvestres) con el fin de cultivar las bacterias de la cavidad bucal y evaluar su diversidad y composición. Los murciélagos en cautiverio presentaron menor cantidad de morfo especies de bacterias que los silvestres, y los murciélagos frugívoros silvestres presentaron mayor cantidad de morfo especies de bacterias que los murciélagos insectívoros. Adicionalmente, los murciélagos en cautiverio mostraron mayor cantidad de bacterias patógenas Staphylococcus que los murciélagos silvestres. Probablemente la dieta sea el principal factor en la variación en diversidad bacteriana la cavidad bucal.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/tropical_ecology/1168/thumbnail.jp