Feather micro‐organisms and uropygial antimicrobial defences in a colonial passerine bird

摘要: Summary 1. The relationship between the composition of communities micro-organisms and their hosts remains poorly understood. We conducted extensive field studies feather-degrading bacteria, other cultivable fungi on plumage a migratory bird, barn swallow Hirundo rustica Linnaeus, to understand association micro-organisms, host sociality antimicrobial defences, as reflected by size uropygial gland. 2. The abundance but not bacteria or fungi, decreased with increasing gland. 3. Females had more than males. 4. Barn swallows living in larger colonies less social conspecifics. 5. These findings suggest that gland plays specific role regulating furthermore depends environment host.