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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Microbiome of the sexual scent organ of Leptonycteris yerbabuenae

subject

description

Microorganisms are tightly bounded to the animals on Earth. Bacteria, among other types of microbes, interact with their hosts in several ways regarding metabolic pathways, development, complex behavioral processes such as mate recognition, among others. The adult males of Leptonycteris yerbabuenae, a nectarivorous bat, develop an interscapular odoriferous patch during the mating season. Here we present a description of the microbiota associated to this sebaceous patch 11 adult males, and studied it in terms of their taxonomical information. The variability between samples was not relevant to this study, and the most abundant phyla were Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, with dominanting classes including Gammaproteobacteria, Clostridia and Bacilli. The two most abundant species were Aggregatibacter pneumotropica and Actinomyces europaeus and other Streptococcus minor, Pseudomonas stutzeri, P. viridiflava and Staphylococcus epidermis, which are relevant in both normal and wounded human skin. Furthermore, the species present in this mating organ are involved in metabolic pathways related to fatty acid transformation to volatile molecules, which could be playing a key role in mate recognition.