Abstract

Host associated microbial communities play important roles in wildlife health, but these dynamics can be influenced by environmental factors. Urbanization has numerous consequences on wildlife; however, the degree to which wildlife associated bacterial communities and potential bacterial pathogens vary across urban to rural/native habitat gradients remains largely unknown. We used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to examine bacterial communities found on mountain chickadee (Poecile gambeli) feathers and nests in urban and rural habitats. Feathers and nests in urban and rural sites had similar abundances of major bacterial phyla and dominant genera with pathogenic members. However, richness of bacterial communities and potential pathogens on birds were higher in urban habitats, and potential pathogens accounted for some of the differences in bacterial occurrence between urban and rural environments. We predicted habitat using potential pathogen occurrence with a 90% success rate for feather bacteria, and a 72.2% success rate for nest bacteria, suggesting an influence of urban environments on potential pathogen presence. We additionally observed similarities in bacterial communities between nests and their occupants, suggesting bacterial transmission between them. These findings improve our understanding of the bacterial communities associated with urban wildlife and suggest that urbanization may impact wildlife associated bacterial community compositions.