ArticlePloS one2025
Captivity-driven microbiota reshaping: A cross-species analysis of divergent patterns in the gut microbiota of giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), red pandas (Ailurus fulgens), and Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus).
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The relative influence of diet, host phylogeny, and environment on animal gut microbiota remains unresolved, particularly for endangered ursids lacking quantitative data. Here, we systematically evaluated the drivers of gut microbial assembly in captive versus wild giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), red pandas (Ailurus fulgens), and Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) using 16S rRNA V4 sequencing. Compared with wild cohorts, captive giant pandas exhibited significantly reduced α-diversity (P < 0.05), whereas captive red pandas and black bears showed significant increases (P < 0.05). Weighted UniFrac-based β-diversity analysis revealed that intra-species distances between captive and wild individuals exceeded those observed between species within either habitat (P < 0.001), indicating profound community restructuring under captivity. At the phylum level, captive animals were dominated by Firmicutes (68.6 ± 23.0%), in contrast to Proteobacteria dominance in wild populations (81.2 ± 17.6%). Genus-level shifts included an enrichment of Sarcina in captive bears and Streptococcus and Escherichia-Shigella in captive pandas, whereas wild bears and pandas were predominantly enriched in Burkholderia and Pseudomonas, respectively. PERMANOVA attributed 21.6% of community variance to environment (F = 23.62), compared to 12.3% for host phylogeny (F = 6.75) and 3.9% for diet (F = 4.32). These findings demonstrate that captive management is the primary determinant of gut microbiota divergence in giant pandas, red pandas, and Asiatic black bear provide microbiome-based guidance for improving captive husbandry and reintroduction success.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.