Microbiome of the sexual scent organ of Leptonycteris yerbabuenae

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1 Ecología Bacteriana, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, C.U., CDMEX, Mexico
2 Ecología Bacteriana, Instituto de Ecología., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, C.U., CDMEX, Mexico
3 Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva, Institut Cavanilles, Universitat de València, Paterna, Valencia, España
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2627v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Molecular Biology, Zoology
Keywords
sebaceous patch, microbiome, Leptonycteris yerbabuenae, sexual scent organ
Copyright
© 2016 Gaona et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Gaona O, Cerqueda-García D, Martínez-Martínez D, Moya A, Falcón LI. 2016. Microbiome of the sexual scent organ of Leptonycteris yerbabuenae. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2627v1

Abstract

Microorganisms are tightly bounded to the animals on Earth. Bacteria, among other types of microbes, interact with their hosts in several ways regarding metabolic pathways, development, complex behavioral processes such as mate recognition, among others. The adult males of Leptonycteris yerbabuenae, a nectarivorous bat, develop an interscapular odoriferous patch during the mating season. Here we present a description of the microbiota associated to this sebaceous patch 11 adult males, and studied it in terms of their taxonomical information. The variability between samples was not relevant to this study, and the most abundant phyla were Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, with dominanting classes including Gammaproteobacteria, Clostridia and Bacilli. The two most abundant species were Aggregatibacter pneumotropica and Actinomyces europaeus and other Streptococcus minor, Pseudomonas stutzeri, P. viridiflava and Staphylococcus epidermis, which are relevant in both normal and wounded human skin. Furthermore, the species present in this mating organ are involved in metabolic pathways related to fatty acid transformation to volatile molecules, which could be playing a key role in mate recognition.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

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