Patterns of diversity in the indigenous microbiota of marine mammals
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis describes patterns of microbial diversity in the digestive tracts of a variety of marine mammal species to better understand how host-driven and external factors affect these indigenous bacterial communities. In chapter one, the distal gut microbiota from representatives of each extant taxonomic order of marine mammals was characterized and compared to that of terrestrial mammals. The goal was to parse out the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic variables that shape the mammalian microbiome structure, specifically the relative impact of host phylogeny versus life in the sea on the marine mammal distal gut microbiota. Results revealed that marine mammals, despite their divergent evolutionary history, harbor distal gut microbiota that bears similarity across taxonomic orders, presumably due to environmental filtering from their marine environment. However, signals of phylosymbiosis are also observed among this group, the strength of which appears to be host-lineage dependent. In chapter two, we explored a scenario in which knowledge of a microbial baseline could yield clinical value for a specific marine mammal species, the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). The assembly of the oral and distal gut microbiome of neonatal seal pups was characterized longitudinally as they aged at a rehabilitation center. Since some seals received prophylactic antibiotics, this was also an opportunity to determine the effect of antibiotic-treatment on the developing microbiome of these healthy growing seals. Results revealed a transient perturbation in the indigenous gut microbiota to which the seal pup host demonstrated resilience. This study has clinical implications for the prophylactic antibiotic protocol used in this age group. The aim of this thesis was to better characterize the marine mammal microbiome to improve the husbandry, therapeutic and preventative care of marine mammals in the future.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Switzer, Alexandra Devon |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Relman, David A |
| Thesis advisor | Relman, David A |
| Thesis advisor | Amieva, Manuel |
| Thesis advisor | Schneider, David (David Samuel) |
| Degree committee member | Amieva, Manuel |
| Degree committee member | Schneider, David (David Samuel) |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Microbiology and Immunology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Alexandra Devon Switzer. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Alexandra Devon Switzer
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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