The fecal virus of wild Asian elephant in Yunnan, China

The Asian elephant is a national first-class protected wild animal in China and is assessed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on its health protection. In order to clarify the composition and structure of Asian elephant enterovirus and explore the impact of enterovirus on its health and its relationship with environmental factors, we performed sequencing analysis of enterovirus in wild Asian elephants in Yunnan Province, China. The structure showed that the Asian elephant enterovirus community contained 14 phyla, 23 classes, 33 orders, 65 families and 118 genera, among which the phages represented by the Microviridae family were dominant, which may play a key role in maintaining the stability and health of the Asian elephant intestinal microbial community. The preliminary assessment of this study is that wild Asian elephants in Yunnan Province, China, are in good health. However, the presence of potentially pathogenic viruses cannot be ignored, therefore, future studies need to enrich our understanding of the spectrum of viruses carried by Asian elephants through multiple experiments. At the same time, it is recommended to monitor the changes in the enterovirus community structure by collecting fecal samples regularly, combined with behavioral performance monitoring, to achieve the protection of Asian elephants.