An analysis of the bacterial and fungal diversity of the fecal material of gopher tortoises.

The gopher tortoise ( Gopherus polyphemus ) is listed in the State of Florida as a threatened species. It is well known that the microbiota of the host is imperative to health promotion and disease mitigation. The diversity of the gut microbiota of the tortoise has not been extensively surveyed.  In this study, we examined both the bacterial and fungal diversity in the fecal material of this animal using bacterial tag-encoded flexible-Titanium (FLX) amplicon pyrosequencing (bTEFAP) and fungal tag-encoded FLX amplicon pyrosequencing.  In the six samples, there were 16 total bacterial phyla identified with Bacillota (54.55 to 86.13%) as the most dominant and two fungal phyla identified with Ascomycota (79.64 to 97.32%) as the most predominant.  Interestingly, the pathogenic fungus Candida tropicalis was detected in all samples suggesting the tortoise could be a reservoir of zoonotic fungi.