Synchronized shift of oral, faecal and urinary microbiotas in bats and natural infection dynamics during seasonal reproduction

Dietrich, Muriel; Kearney, Teresa; Seamark, Ernest C. J.; Paweska, Janusz T.; Markotter, Wanda

Bats are well-recognized reservoirs of pathogens causing significant morbidity and mortality in humans, such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, as well as Marburg, Hendra and Nipah viruses [15] . New evidence suggests that bat-to-human spillovers are driven by spatio-temporal pulses of shedding in bat populations [16] . In particular, clusters of Nipah virus spillover in Bangladesh, Marburg virus in Uganda and Hendra virus in Australia have all been associated with pulses of shedding in bat colonies, specifically during the reproductive season [17] [18] [19] . Recent metagenomics-based nextgeneration sequencing studies have profiled the microbiota composition of bats and have shown the influence of host phylogeny, diet, body habitat and female reproductive condition [20] [21] [22] . However, to date, temporal variation of the microbiota based on longitudinal sampling has never been investigated in bats and the dynamics of the host-microbiota-infection triangle during bat reproduction thus remains poorly documented.