Gut microbiota in reintroduction of Giant Panda

Reintroduction is a key approach in the conservation of endangered species. In recent decades, many reintroduction projects have been conducted for conservation purposes, but the rate of success has been low. Given the important role of gut microbiota in health and diseases, we questioned whether gut microbiota would play a crucial role in giant panda's wild‐training process. The wild procedure is when captive‐born babies live with their mothers in a wilderness enclosure and learn wilderness survival skills from their mothers. During the wild‐training process, the baby pandas undergo wilderness survival tests and regular physical examinations. Based on their performance through these tests, the top subjects (age 2–3 years old) are released into the wild while the others are translocated to captivity. After release, we tracked one released panda (Zhangxiang) and collected its fecal samples for 5 months (January 16, 2013 to March 29 2014). Here, we analyzed the Illumina HiSeq sequencing d...再引入是濒危物种保护的核心手段之一。近数十年来，学界已开展多项以物种保护为目标的再引入项目，但整体成功率始终偏低。鉴于肠道微生物组（gut microbiota）在宿主健康与疾病进程中发挥的关键作用，我们提出疑问：肠道微生物组是否会在大熊猫的野化训练过程中扮演核心角色？所谓野化训练流程，即让圈养出生的幼崽与母兽共同生活于野外围场中，并从母兽处学习野外生存技能。在野化训练期间，幼龄大熊猫需接受野外生存能力测试与定期体格检查。根据受试个体在各项测试中的表现，筛选出年龄2至3岁的最优个体放归野外，其余个体则转回圈养环境。放归后，我们对一只名为“张想”的放归个体进行了为期5个月的追踪（2013年1月16日至2014年3月29日），并采集其粪便样本。本研究对Illumina HiSeq测序得到的序列数据进行了分析……