Anthropogenic Neighborhood Impact on Bacterial and Fungal Communities in Polar Bear Feces

• Published in: Animals (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 13; p. 2067
• Main Authors: Vecherskii, Maksim V, Kuznetsova, Tatiana A, Khayrullin, David R, Stepankov, Aleksandr A, Artemieva, Svetlana M, Chukmasov, Pavel V, Ivanov, Evgeny A, Mizin, Ivan A, Mordvintsev, Ilya N, Platonov, Nikita G, Pashali, Aleksandr A, Isachenko, Artem I, Lazareva, Renata E, Shestakova, Ksenia M, Rozhnov, Viatcheslav V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 22-06-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Animal populations; Animals; Anthropogenic factors; Aquatic mammals; Bacteria; Candida; Climate change; Comparative analysis; Diet; Digestive system; Dysbacteriosis; Food; Food waste; Fungi; Gastrointestinal diseases; Health risks; Human influences; Human settlements; Human wastes; Ice; Immune system; intestinal microbiome; Intestine; Landfill; Landfills; Metabolism; Microbiomes; Microorganisms; Natural & organic foods; Neighborhoods; NGS; Physiological aspects; Polar bear; Polar bears; Polar environments; Proteolysis; Refuse and refuse disposal; Relative abundance; Seals; Seals (animals); Starvation; Yeasts; Russia; Barents Sea; Arctic region; Novaya Zemlya; polar bear; intestinal microbiome; NGS
• ISSN: 2076-2615; 2076-2615
• DOI: 10.3390/ani13132067

Climate changes cause a dramatical increase in the ice-free season in the Arctic, forcing polar bears ashore, closer to human settlements associated with new and non-natural food objects. Such a diet may crucially transform the intestinal microbiome and metabolism of polar bears. The aim of this study was to characterize changes in the gut bacterial and fungal communities resulting from the transition to anthropogenic food objects by the means of 16S and ITS metabarcoding. Thus, rectal samples from 16 wild polar bears from the Kara-Barents subpopulation were studied. Human waste consuming resulted in a significant increase in the relative abundance of fermentative bacteria (Lactobacillaceae, Leuconostocaceae, and Streptococcaceae) and a decrease in proteolytic Enterobacteriaceae. However, the alpha-diversity parameters remained similar. Also, for the first time, the composition of the fungal community of the polar bear intestine was determined. Diet change is associated with the displacement of eurybiontic fungi (
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) by opportunistic
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, and
. Feeding on human waste does not cause any signs of dysbiosis and probably leads to adaptive changes in the bacterial microbiome. However, the emergence of fungal facultative pathogens increases the risk of infections.