The Screamer Gut Microbiome

The horned screamer (Anhima cornuta) is a member of Anhimidae family (Anseriformes order), with two species more (southern screamer (Chauna chavaria) and the northern screamer (Chauna torquata). Horned screamers are distributed in tropical lowland fresh water of Venezuela, the eastern llanos of Columbia, eastern Bolivia and south-central Brazil (Naranjo 1986; Piland, 2010). This species is catalog by IUCN as Least Concern (LC), because has a large range distribution, and population decline is not to be sufficiently rapid (BirdLife International, 2012). One study in Ecuador report that agriculture expansion and cattle ranching are reduced the Horned Screamer population (Avala et al., 2009). The natural habitat of Venezuela had been destroyed by agriculture and livestock grazing expansion causing loss of biodiversity (Fundación La Salle de Ciencias Naturales, 2010). However information about this bird is reduced to a few studies realized in Colombia and Ecuador (Gill et al., 1974; Barrow et al 1986; Naranjo, 1986; Avala et al., 2009) and in Venezuela information is reduce a few counts reported by NWC (Martinez, 2011, 2012; Sainz-Borgo, 2013; Sainz-Borgo et al., 2014, 2015). The Horned Screamer eats a variety of small shrubs and buds grazing and digging along the water (Naranjo, 1986; Piland, 2010; Hilty, 2013). Only one study made in Colombia described the horned screamer diet as herbivorous and include 9 plant species (Naranjo, 1986). However, we not found reports of bacteria community or anatomy description of digestive tract in horned screamer. We hypothesized that horned screamer can be have a digestive tract with fermentation chamber with microorganisms in crop or ceca. The objective of our study is describe the anatomy and to characterize the bacterial community of digestive tract of horned screamer (Anhima cornuta) in a wetland of Venezuela.