Licuo Ze1,2,3+, Mengqi Duan1,2,3,4+, MingBang Wei1,2,3, Guoxin Wu1,2,3, Haoyang Nie1,2,3, Jingrui Ji1,2,3, Zhankun Tan1,2,3, Yangzom Chamba1,2,3*, Peng Shang1,2,3*
1College of Animal Science, Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry University, Linzhi, China
2Key Laboratory of Tibetan Pig Genetic Improvement and Reproduction Engineering, Nyingchi 860000, Tibet, China
3Tibetan Pig Science and Technology Courtyard in Nyingchi, Nyingchi 860000, Tibet, China
4College of Animal Science and Technology, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450046, China
+These authors contributed equally to this work
*Corresponding authors’ emails: yeyourong@xza.edu.cn; nemoshpmh@126.com
Received: 15 June 2025 / Accepted: 06 August 2025 / Published Online: 27 August 2025
Abstract
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China’s largest ecologically fragile and sensitive region, is critical for understanding wildlife-environment interactions. To clarify the gut microbiota characteristics of Wild Rock Sheep (Pseudois nayaur) in this region and explore their potential ecological implications, we performed 16S rDNA sequencing on field-collected fecal samples. A total of 386,588 high-quality sequences were obtained, with an average of 111,382 valid combined sequences per sample. At the phylum level, Firmicutes dominate over Bacteroidetes, with notable inter-individual variations in their relative abundances. At the genus level, UCG-005 and Rikenellaceae-RC9-gut-group were the key differential taxa. with distinct abundances across samples. α-diversity indices (Chao1, ACE, Simpson, and Shannon) indicated high species richness, diversity, and evenness in the microbial communities, reflecting a stable gut ecosystem. Functional prediction revealed that the gut microbiota was primarily involved in core metabolic processes, including carbohydrate, amino acid, cofactor and vitamin metabolic processes, as well as terpenoid/polyketide, nucleotide, energy, and lipid metabolism.
Compared to prior studies on Rock Sheep gut microbiota, our work uniquely focuses on the ecologically fragile Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, linking microbial traits to potential adaptations to high-altitude environments. These findings enhance understanding of wildlife-microbiota-environment interactions and provide baseline data for conservation and ecological management in the region.
Keywords: Wild Rock Sheep, 16S rRNA sequencing, Gut microorganism, Microbial diversity
