Quantitative Interspecific Approach to the Stylosphere: Patterns of Bacteria and Fungi Abundance on Passerine Bird Feathers.

摘要: Feathers are the habitat of a myriad organisms, from fungi and bacteria to lice mites. Although most studies focus on specific taxa their interaction with bird host, anecdotal data glimpse feathers as holders system its own ecology, what we call here stylosphere. A major gap in our knowledge stylosphere is ecology total abundance microorganisms, being also rare find that analyze more than one group microorganisms at interspecific level. Here, quantified bacterial abundances through qPCR wing 144 birds 24 passerine non-passerine species three localities Southern Spain. Bacteria spanned orders magnitude among individual birds, but were consistent when comparing right left individuals. Sampling locality explained ca. 14% variation both abundances. Even statistically controlling for sampling locality, microbial consistently differed between different species, these differences not by phylogeny. Finally, individuals having tended held larger fungi. Our results suggest quite complex explanation microorganisms' abundance, shaped traits, well environmental factors, likely bacteria-fungi interactions.