Seasonal Breeding Leads to Changes for Gut Microbiota Diversity in the Wild Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus Dauricus)

Abstract Background: Seasonal breeding is a normal phenomenon that animals adapt to natural selection and reproduce only in specific seasons. With the gradual popularization of Next-generation sequencing (NGS), large studies have shown that seasonal breeding has been affected by gut microbiota. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to explore the effect of seasonal breeding on the gut microbiota of wild ground squirrel (Spermophilus dauricus). We used 16S rRNA gene sequencing technology to sequence the gut microbiota of the wild ground squirrel in the breeding season and non-breeding season. We also predicted the function of gut microbiota by bioinformatic software.Results: The results showed that the main components of gut microbiota in all samples consisted of Firmicutes (61.8%), Bacteroidetes (32.4%), and Proteobacteria (3.7%). Microbial community composition analyses revealed significant differences between these two groups. At the genus level, Alistipes, Mycoplasma, Anaerotruncus, and Odoribacter were up-regulated in the non-breeding season, while Blautia and Streptococcus spp. were up-regulated in the breeding season. The result of function prediction suggested that the relative abundance of functional categories related to lipid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, and nucleotide metabolism was higher in the breeding season. The expression of transcription, energy metabolism, and signal transduction was enriched in the non-breeding season. Conclusions: Overall, the results of this study emphasized the significant effects of seasonal breeding on gut microbiota community composition of the wild ground squirrel and laid a foundation for further study of gut microbiota on seasonal breeding in the future.