Chicken tissue microbial decomposition study: bird metagenome Raw sequence reads

We couple microbial forensics with molecular dietary analysis to quantify species interactions and identify scavenging by invasive rats on native and introduced birds in Hawaii. We characterized bacterial signatures of bird carcass decay by conducting 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing on chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) tissues collected over a 11-day decomposition study. This is the data we are uploading here. We then we characterized the gut microbiome of the same rats using 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and identified 17 bacterial taxa that were (i) detected only in the rats that had consumed birds (n = 20/51) and (ii) were indicative of decaying tissue in the chicken model. Those data will be uploaded as a second dataset.