Fecal bacterial diversity of wild Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys

In the present study, we characterized the phylogenetic and functional profiles of the bacterial community present in the feces as a surrogate for the intestinal tract (although fecal samples only capture the bacteria in the distal part) collected from three adult males and three adult females of wild R. roxellana by using the high-throughput sequencing technology to identify bacterial 16S rRNA genes. We also conducted a sex comparison, with the expectation that the relative abundance of the bacterial taxa or metabolic pathways associated to energy and carbohydrate metabolism was higher in femals due to the higher energy and nutrition requirements for reproduction.