Separated Since the Dinosaurs, Pandas and Bamboo-Eating Lemurs Share Common Gut Microbes
A new study from North Carolina State University, the Smithsonian and Duke University finds that bamboo lemurs, giant pandas and red pandas share 48 gut microbes in common – despite the fact that they are separated by millions of years of evolution.
“The bamboo lemur’s evolutionary tree diverged from that of both panda species 83 million years ago – that’s 18 million years before dinosaurs went extinct,” says Erin McKenney, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on the study.
A new study from North Carolina State University, the Smithsonian and Duke University finds that bamboo lemurs, giant pandas and red pandas share 48 gut microbes in common – despite the fact that they are separated by millions of years of evolution. For comparison, bamboo lemurs share only eight gut microbes with their closely related cousins, the ringtail lemurs.
Credit: Erin McKenney
“Yet all three species share these 48 gut microbes – more than 12 percent of the microbial types found in each species’ gut,” McKenney says. “The only common feature is their diet: all three species live almost exclusively on bamboo.”
Bamboo is not easy to eat. It is physically tough, difficult to break down, and is not especially nutritious. In order to thrive on a bamboo diet, an animal needs some help in breaking down the fibrous material to get the necessary nutrients. And that’s especially true for animals with simple guts – like the bamboo lemur, red panda and giant panda.
This is a bamboo lemur.
Credit: David Haring, Duke Lemur Center
Of the 48 microbes found in common, some are also found in other animals fond of fiber-rich diets. For example, several are also found in cows, and one is found in termites. This suggests that these microbes play a role in breaking down fiber to extract nutrients.
This is a giant panda.
Credit: Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian National Zoo
“This really underscores the role that diet plays in determining what lives in our guts – and, in turn, how these microbial ecosystems can shape the way animals live,” McKenney says.
Contacts and sources:
North Carolina State University,
The paper, “Bamboo specialists from two mammalian orders (Primates, Carnivora) share a high number of low-abundance gut microbes,” is published in the journal Microbial Ecology. The paper was co-authored by Michael Maslanka of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and Conservation Biology Institute; Allen Rodrigo of Australian National University; and Anne Yoder of Duke University. The work was done with support from the National Science Foundation, under grant 1455848, and Ion Torrent. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-1114-8
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2017/12/separated-since-dinosaurs-pandas-and.html
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