Study On The Correlation Between Diet And Stomach Contents Microbes Of Zokor In Liu-Pan Mountains,Ningxia

Zokor is a unique underground rodent in East Asia.Its burrowing lifestyle results in its high energy consumption,which leads to its extensive food intake,causing serious damage to the forestry ecological restoration project in north China.The scientific research on zokor began from the prevention and control of zokor,the understanding of zokor’s feeding habits can provide theoretical basis for making prevention and control measures.Animal feeding habits are closely related to stomach contents microbes.Diet is the main way and driving factor for stomach contents microbial colonization.Enhancing the understanding of the relationship between stomach contents microbiota composition and dietary changes is an important step to understand the animal-food-microbial interaction.In this study,DNA metabarcoding was used to study the dietary habits of zokor in Liu-pan mountains.The dietary characteristics and stomach contents microbes of zokor under natural conditions were determined.The ecological adaptability theory of underground rodent based on food and Microbe was improved.The main results are as follows.(1)Zokor mainly feeds on rhizome and taproot of perennial herbs such as Asteraceae and Poaceae in Liu-pan Mountains.There was no significant difference in food composition between the two sympatric zokor species.In order to avoid food competition with Eospalax smithii,Eospalax cansus formed diversified diet.(2)The stomach contents bacteria of zokor were mainly Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes,and the ratio of them was higher than that of caecal bacteria.At the level of bacterial genus,Lactobacillus and norank Christensenellaceae were the main bacterial genera.There was no significant difference between the bacterial groups of the two sympatric zokor species,but some bacterial genera changed with the sampling time,which may be related to the change of host food source.Function predicts that the main function of stomach contents bacteria in zokor is biosynthesis.Most functional abundance of Gansu zokor was significantly higher than that of Smithi zokor,which may be related to the diversity of food composition.(3)Ascomycota and Basidiomycota are the main fungi in the stomach contents of zokor,and Humicola is the dominant genus.The stomach contents fungi of zokor are mainly from soil.These soil fungi may help the zokor digest cellulose.The functional prediction revealed that most functional pathways of E.smithii were higher than those of E.cansus.(4)Among the plant roots on which zokor feeds,rhizome is the most important type of the food resource of zokor by its most widely distributed component,indicating that zokor chooses the food resource which is easier to obtain for survival.(5)The zokor’s diet,stomach contents bacteria and fungi are closely related to each other.