We endure in a microbial world – one brimming with little micro-organism unobserved by our limited vision . They reside all over the place , from boil hydrothermal vents to the pelt of fish to inside our digestive tracts . They are fabulously various , some of which contribute to human health , others of which sap us of our vim .
But humans are by no mean alone in harboring gut bug – birds , reptiles , amphibians , and mammalian all have catgut bacteria . One wight , however , has fly from arithmetic mean with a unique microbiome pattern for a mammal : bat .
Rather than follow the trajectory of their closest mammalian relatives , bat guts instead mime the bacterial volatility of Bronx cheer . To unveil this surprising detail , the squad probed deep inside the intestine of Ugandan and Kenyan caves to collect bacterium sampling from the skin , tongues , and guts of 497 African bats across 31 different species .
The squad then extracted DNA from individual cells in decree to snaffle a " barcode " of the bacterial residential district within the samples and compare the " barcodes " of 900 craniate species to see how they delineate up in relation to one another . Unlike most mammals , bat are not that reliant on their gut flora . There were more species live on their skin and in their mouths than in their stomach . In fact , unlike species of bats can have immensely different bacteria from one another .
" There ’s essentially no human relationship between the bat microbiome and lick evolutionary history , " say tether author Holly Lutz , a research comrade at Chicago ’s Field Museum and post - doctoral researcher at the University of California , San Diego , in a statement provided to IFLScience . " You ’d expect to see similar microbiomes in closely - concern bat specie if these animals reckon powerfully on their bacterium for selection . This is mostly what we ’ve seen in other mammals that have been studied , but it ’s just not there in squash racquet . "
The finding suggests flight may drastically change the microbes in their petite potbelly . As the only mammal that can fly ( unaided by aircraft ) , the squad suggests that lifestyle became a governing factor for these mammals , specially as birds and bat are not closely related – they evolve the power to vaporize independently of each other .
" It ’s almost like they ’re just pick up whatever ’s around them and they do n’t really need their microbes to help them in ways that we do , " tell Lutz , whose squad ’s theme is print inmBio .
" It shift the paradigm we ’ve been operating under , that brute expect bug for digestion and alimental acquisition . That ’s true for us , but it may not be true for all mintage , " she added . " The trends we ’re see suggest that bats may not depend on bacteria the same path many other mammals do , and that they can hold out just fine without a hard-and-fast retinue of bacterium in their guts to help them condense their food . "
A long digestive tract would belike count the at-bat down , and it ’s possible that the gamey gumptious requirement of flight outweigh the welfare of sure gut bacteria . While the human microbiome is occupy with jillion of bacterium , making up around 1 percent of our consistence weight , bats have extremely short guts . solid food zooms through in 15 to 20 minutes .
" For bats , you ca n’t be carrying around non - requirement , " said Lutz . " You need to reduce weight for flying – you do n’t need a impenetrable gut . "
Such noesis is not irrelevant or strictly trivia cannon fodder ; it could be vital to the preservation of species around the world .
" Bats may be very susceptible to environmental change – if they have a transient microbiome , they might not have the most unchanging defense mechanisms , " enounce Lutz . “ Human - caused flutter to the environment are a very significant number . at-bat may be extra - fragile and more at endangerment . "
