The influence of season, habitat and diet on the faecal microbiome of the yellow-footed rock-wallaby (Petrogale xanthopus xanthopus)

Lauren Elizabeth Werner; Shannon Leilani Kleemann; Stacey Kathleen Dix; Korjent van Dijk; Edward Biffin; Michelle Waycott; Raphael Eisenhofer; David Augustine Taggart

doi:10.1071/ZO25002

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Contents Vol 73(4)

The influence of season, habitat and diet on the faecal microbiome of the yellow-footed rock-wallaby (Petrogale xanthopus xanthopus)

Lauren Elizabeth Werner

^A ^* , Shannon Leilani Kleemann

^A , Stacey Kathleen Dix ^B , Korjent van Dijk ^C ^D , Edward Biffin ^D , Michelle Waycott ^C ^D , Raphael Eisenhofer ^A ^E and David Augustine Taggart

^B ^F

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.

^B School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, University of Adelaide, Roseworthy, SA 5371, Australia.

^C School of Biological Sciences, Department of Ecology and Environmental Biology and The Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.

^D State Herbarium of South Australia, Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, Department for Environment and Water, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.

^E Centre for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

^F FAUNA Research Alliance Inc., PO Box 5092, Kahibah, NSW 2290, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: lauren.werner@adelaide.edu.au

Handling Editor: Steven Cooper

Australian Journal of Zoology 73, ZO25002 https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO25002

Submitted: 11 January 2025 Accepted: 6 May 2025 Published: 22 May 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Knowledge of an animal’s microbiome is becoming increasingly recognised as an important consideration in the conservation of threatened species, particularly in the face of wide-spread changes to climate and rainfall patterns. The yellow-footed rock-wallaby (YFRW; Petrogale xanthopus xanthopus) is endemic to the semiarid regions of South Australia and New South Wales. This study aimed to characterise the faecal microbial diversity and its relationship to diet and season/rainfall in two geographically separated South Australian YFRW populations with differing habitat characteristics. Sequencing targeting the 16S rRNA gene revealed that location was the greatest driver of faecal microbial differences (P < 0.01), with season (P < 0.01) and the interaction of location × season also statistically significant (P < 0.01). The main phyla identified throughout were Firmicutes and Bacteroidota. Diet varied between individuals with Acacia species commonly detected at each study site, which appeared to be linked with an increase in the proportion of Firmicutes present, although further sampling is required to confirm this. Further research and continued long term monitoring is required to understand microbial functions, how the role of these microbes may affect an individual’s health, and how faecal microbiome can be manipulated to increase a species’ resilience to dry times and drought.

Keywords: ASV diversity, composition, diet, Faecal microbiome, microbial diversity, rainfall, richness, rock-wallaby.

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