ArticlePeerJ2014
Sampling locality is more detectable than taxonomy or ecology in the gut microbiota of the brood-parasitic Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater).
Article in PeerJ, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers.
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Who cites it
82 citing papers in PubMed, 170 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gut Microbiome Variations in Herring Gulls (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Host Diet Preference Drives Diversity and Composition of Gut Microbiota in Captive Birds.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- The Impact of Whole-Animal Fluid Preservation on the Observed Gut Microbiome of Vertebrates: Implications for the Use of Museum Specimens in Microbiome Research.Molecular ecology resources · 2025Article
- Urbanization and the Gut Microbiome: Insights From the Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) in California.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Microbiome Comparison and Pathogen Identification for Three Migrating Passerines Captured During Spring Season in Jordan Using 16S rRNA Sequencing.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Seasonal variation in gut microbiota of migratory wild raptors: a case study in white-tailed eagles.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- Exploring Bird Gut Microbiota Through Opportunistic Fecal Sampling: Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Host identity drives the assembly of phytoplankton microbiomes across a continental-scale environmental gradient.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Article
- The Influence of Microbiota on Wild Birds' Parental Coprophagy Behavior: Current Advances and Future Research Directions.Microorganisms · 2024Review
- The gut microbiota of three avian species living in sympatry.BMC ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Manipulating a host-native microbial strain compensates for low microbial diversity by increasing weight gain in a wild bird population.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Comparative Analyses ofEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Stopover habitat selection drives variation in the gut microbiome composition and pathogen acquisition by migrating shorebirds.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- Migratory Shorebird Gut Microbes are not Associated with Bivalve Prey in Monsoon Tropical Australia.Current microbiology · 2024Article
- The reproductive microbiome and maternal transmission of microbiota via eggs in Sceloporus virgatus.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- The impact of management on the fecal microbiome of endangered greater sage-grouse (Conservation physiology · 2024Article
- Metagenomic comparison of gut communities between wild and captive Himalayan griffons.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2024Article
- Comparison of the Intestinal Bacterial Communities between Captive and Semi-Free-Range Red-Crowned Cranes (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- The microbiome of African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) under managed care resembles that of wild marine mammals and birds.Scientific reports · 2023Article
22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) are the most widespread avian brood parasite in North America, laying their eggs in the nests of approximately 250 host species that raise the cowbird nestlings as their own. It is currently unknown how these heterospecific hosts influence the cowbird gut microbiota relative to other factors, such as the local environment and genetics. We test a Nature Hypothesis (positing the importance of cowbird genetics) and a Nurture Hypothesis (where the host parents are most influential to cowbird gut microbiota) using the V6 region of 16S rRNA as a microbial fingerprint of the gut from 32 cowbird samples and 16 potential hosts from nine species. We test additional hypotheses regarding the influence of the local environment and age of the birds. We found no evidence for the Nature Hypothesis and little support for the Nurture Hypothesis. Cowbird gut microbiota did not form a clade, but neither did members of the host species. Rather, the physical location, diet and age of the bird, whether cowbird or host, were the most significant categorical variables. Thus, passerine gut microbiota may be most strongly influenced by environmental factors. To put this variation in a broader context, we compared the bird data to a fecal microbiota dataset of 38 mammal species and 22 insect species. Insects were always the most variable; on some axes, we found more variation within cowbirds than across all mammals. Taken together, passerine gut microbiota may be more variable and environmentally determined than other taxonomic groups examined to date.
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