480: Bait Bottlenecks Bear Bacteria

This episode: Human-based food used as bait by hunters can reduce
bears' gut microbe diversity!


Download Episode (5.9 MB, 8.6 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Actinomadura verrucosospora


News item


Takeaways





Gut microbes are important for the health of most animals.
In humans, many things can affect our gut microbe
community, including diet, medications, and lifestyle.
Eating a varied diet with diverse kinds of plant-based
foods can maintain a healthy, functional community of many
different kinds of microbe. However, eating mostly highly
processed grain-based foods can reduce the diversity and
functionality of the gut community.

This is also true in bears. In this study, when bears
consumed more processed, grain-based human foods via
hunters leaving such foods out as bait, the gut communities
in these bears had reduced diversity of microbes. The
effects of this reduced diversity were not determined, but
it is reasonable to assume it was not good for the bears’
overall health.


 
Journal Paper:
Gillman SJ, McKenney EA, Lafferty DJR. 2022.
Human-provisioned foods reduce gut microbiome diversity in
American black bears (Ursus americanus). J Mammal
103:339–346.

 


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