"Understanding animal and environmental microbiomes could be the key to successfully reintroducing captive animals to the wild".
"Every day, visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute get to see one of the most critically endangered animals in North America: the red wolf. While they once roamed plentifully across the United States, red wolf numbers have dwindled so low that only about 270 individuals remain in zoos, wildlife centers, and one wild population. Scientists are hoping that wolves from the zoo will eventually be released to help boost the populations of the critically endangered species. Before they’re released, however, the wolves at the zoo have some tummy troubles to get over first.
“Many of the wolves in captivity experience inflammatory bowel disorder or some sort of gastrointestinal distress that we believe is in part due to the diet they’re being fed,” said Carly Muletz Wolz, a molecular ecologist at the zoo. “Their probabilities of success would be less than an individual that is healthy.”
One way that Muletz Wolz is trying to help the wolves is by fixing the microbes in their guts. Just as we have our own microbiomes—communities of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that live in and around us—so too do animals. Each microbial species is there to perform a specific role, whether it lives in the gut and helps us digest food or lives in the mouth and protects us from harmful pathogens. While the human gut microbiome has received a huge amount of research attention, a similar focus on animal microbiomes is just emerging, and could help scientists fine-tune conservation methods. By looking at how animal microbiomes respond and change to different environmental conditions, and observing which microbes make up the microbiomes of healthy animals, researchers are hoping to get a better picture of not just an individual’s health but ecosystem health as well."
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