pika gut bacterial community. host gut microbial response to parasitic infection

Intestinal parasites such as Eimeria are common intestinal parasites of plateau pika. Gut microbiome is an essential driver of host response to gastrointestinal parasites. However, effect of intestinal helminth parasites on temporal variation of gut microbiome as well as behavioral and physiological activities remains unknown. Our study conducted the treatments with feeding of Eimeria oocysts or deworming Eimeria for plateau pika under laboratory conditions to focus on the parasite-associated alterations in gut bacterial communities, host behavioral activity and physiology as well as host-bacteria relationships. We found that the effects of feeding time under laboratory conditions overwhelm the parasites impacts on gut bacteria with unsignificant differences in bacterial structure among treatments but obviously alterations along feeding time in laboratory.