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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbial Symbioses
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1458258
This article is part of the Research Topic Unveiling the Potential of Microbiome in Semi-Wild and Wildlife Animals: Exploring Opportunities for Disease Mitigation and Animal Health across Ecological Zones View all articles

Structure and Assembly Process of Skin Fungal Communities Among Bat Species in Northern China

Provisionally accepted
Denghui Wang Denghui Wang 1Fan Wang Fan Wang 2Zihao Huang Zihao Huang 2Aoqiang Li Aoqiang Li 3Wentao Dai Wentao Dai 4Leng Haixia Leng Haixia 4Longru Jin Longru Jin 4Zhongle Li Zhongle Li 2*Keping Sun Keping Sun 4*Jiang Feng Jiang Feng 2
  • 1 College of Life Sciences, Jilin Normal University, Siping, Jilin Province, China
  • 2 College of Life Sciences, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China
  • 3 School of Life Science, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
  • 4 Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Resource Conservation and Utilization, School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Hebei Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The skin fungal communities of animals play a crucial role in maintaining host health and defending against pathogens. Because fungal infections can affect the skin microbiota of bats, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of healthy bat skin fungal communities and the ecological processes driving them provides valuable insights into the interactions between pathogens and fungi.We used Kruskal-Wallis tests and Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA) to clarify differences in skin fungal community structure among bat species. A Generalized Linear Model (GLM) based on a quasi-Poisson distribution and partial distance-based redundancy analysis (db-RDA) was performed to assess the influence of variables on skin fungal communities. Using community construction models to explore the ecological processes driving fungal community changes, t-tests and Wilcoxon tests were used to compare the alpha diversity and species abundance differences between the fungal structure on bat species' skin and the environmental fungal pool.We found significant differences in the composition and diversity of skin fungal communities among bat species influenced by temperature, sampling site, and body mass index. Trophic modes and skin fungal community complexity also varied among bat species. Null model and neutral model analysis demonstrated that deterministic processes dominated the assembly of skin fungal communities, with homogeneous selection as the predominant process. Skin fungal communities on bat species were impacted by the environmental fungal reservoir, and actively selected certain amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) from the environmental reservoir to adhere to the skin.In this study, we revealed the structure and the ecological process driving the skin fungal community across bat species in northern China. Overall, these results broaden our knowledge of skin fungal communities among bat species, which may be beneficial to potential strategies for the protection of bats in China.

    Keywords: bats, skin fungal community structure, community assembly, driving processes, environmental fungal reservoir

    Received: 02 Jul 2024; Accepted: 23 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Wang, Huang, Li, Dai, Haixia, Jin, Li, Sun and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Zhongle Li, College of Life Sciences, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun, 130118, Jilin Province, China
    Keping Sun, Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Resource Conservation and Utilization, School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130117, Hebei Province, China

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