Asian Elephant microbiome

Human activities interfere with wild animals and lead to the loss of many animal populations. Therefore, efforts have been made to understand how wildlife can rebound from anthropogenic disturbances. An essential mechanism to adapt to environmental and social changes is the fluctuations in the host gut microbiome. Here we give a comprehensive description of anthropogenically induced microbiome alterations in Asian elephants. We detected gut microbial changes due to overseas translocation, captivity and deworming. These findings may provide fundamental ideas to help guide the preservation tactics and probiotic replacement therapies of a dysbiosed gut microbiome in Asian elephants.