Characterizing Bacterial and Archaeal Microbiomes of Urban Long-Tailed Macaques in Singapore

Abstract

Animal microbiomes are sources of ecological responsiveness in the face of environmental change, and may serve as modulators and indicators of adaptability and stress in the face of emerging ecological perturbations. Baseline characterizations of non-human primate microbiomes will be important to applied and theoretical applications of microbiome research. Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fasciularis) are among the most ubiquitous primates, they live in close association with humans, and are a common model organism in biomedical research. Here, we use 16S amplicon metabarcoding of the V4 hypervariable region to provide baseline information on taxonomic and inferred functional variation in the prokaryotic (Archaea and Eubacteria) assemblies of oral and gut microbiomes of urban long-tailed macaques in Singapore. Oral microbiomes showed the most pronounced community structure at lower taxonomic levels, particularly ASVs. Gut microbiomes, in contrast, showed the most pronounced community structure at higher taxonomic levels, particularly phyla. Gut microbiomes showed clear groupings based on relative abundances of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes. Gut microbiome community composition was almost entirely explained by the Proteobacteria:Firmicutes ratio and this metric explained twice as much inferred functional variation as the more traditional Firmicutes:Bacteroidetes ratio. Archaeal communities in both oral and gut communities were dominated by methanogens. These were the only archaea found in the gut, but ammonia-oxidizing archaea were consistent constituents of oral microbiome assemblies as well. Ultimately, our findings imply distinct microbiome composition in Singapores urban macaques relative to reports from non-urban conspecifics.