What's the scoop on lizard poop?: Insights into the gut microbial ecology of lizards

KOHL, KEVIN D.; ANTONIO BRUN; MAGALLANES, MELISA; LASPIUR, ALEJANDRO; ACOSTA, JUAN CARLOS; BORDENSTEIN, SETH R.; CAVIEDES-VIDAL E

Portland Oregon

Congreso; SICB Annual Meeting; 2016

Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology

Vertebrate hosts maintain complex associations with a diversecommunity of microbes living in their guts. Our understanding of theecology of these associations is extremely limited in reptiles. Here,we conducted an in-depth study into the microbial ecology of gutcommunities in three syntopic lizard species in the Southern Andesof Argentina (two omnivorous species: Liolaemus parvus and L.ruibali, and an herbivorous species: Phymaturus williamsi). All threespecies are viviparous (live-bearing). We used 16S rRNA sequencingto inventory the microbial communities of the lizard gut and manyother sources (plant material in nature, diets in captivity, etc.). Wefound that in nature, a considerable portion of the fecal communitiesof lizards (25-50%) overlapped with microbiota found on plantmaterial, and little overlap with soil or invertebrate microbiota (