ArticleEnvironmental microbiology2017
Eye of the Finch: characterization of the ocular microbiome of house finches in relation to mycoplasmal conjunctivitis.
Article in Environmental microbiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ocular Microbiota and Intraocular Inflammation.Frontiers in immunology · 2020Pooled it
- Ocular immune homeostasis-mechanisms of precise regulation through coordination of the eye, visual system and beyond: a narrative review.Annals of eye science · 2026Article
- The elephant (bird) in the room: unknown mechanisms and unresolved impacts of low DNA yields in avian microbiome research.Animal microbiome · 2026Article
- Paying Upfront: Successful Initial Infections Protect Against Severe Future Infections.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Quantifying iris pigmentation irregularities following an avian influenza outbreak: implications for population-level disease surveillance in a colonial seabird.Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- The effect of topical antibiotic or antibiotic-corticosteroid treatment on the ocular surface microbiota of healthy horses.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Elucidating the dynamic immune responses within the ocular mucosa of rainbow trout (Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Article
- The porcine corneal surface bacterial microbiome: A distinctive niche within the ocular surface.PloS one · 2021Article
- Metagenomics in ophthalmology: current findings and future prospectives.BMJ open ophthalmology · 2019Review
- Host species, pathogens and disease associated with divergent nasal microbial communities in tortoises.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- Host Responses to Pathogen Priming in a Natural Songbird Host.EcoHealth · 2017Article
- Resident Microbiome Disruption with Antibiotics Enhances Virulence of a Colonizing Pathogen.Scientific reports · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Vertebrate ocular microbiomes are poorly characterized and virtually unexplored in wildlife species. Pathogen defense is considered a key function of microbiomes, but determining microbiome stability during disease is critical for understanding the role of resident microbial communities in infectious disease dynamics. Here, we characterize the ocular bacterial microbiome of house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus), prior to and during experimental infection with an inflammatory ocular disease, Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, caused by Mycoplasma gallisepticum. In ocular tissues of healthy house finches, we identified 526 total bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs, 97% similarity), primarily from Firmicutes (92.6%) and Proteobacteria (6.9%), via 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Resident ocular communities of healthy female finches were characterized by greater evenness and phylogenetic diversity compared to healthy male finches. Regardless of sex, ocular microbiome community structure significantly shifted 11 days after experimental inoculation with M. gallisepticum. A suite of OTUs, including taxa from the genera Methylobacterium, Acinetobacter and Mycoplasma, appear to drive these changes, indicating that the whole finch ocular microbiome responds to infection. Further study is needed to quantify changes in absolute abundance of resident taxa and to elucidate potential functional roles of the resident ocular microbiome in mediating individual responses to this common songbird bacterial pathogen.
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Registered trials
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