How to save hungry koalas, threatened by the disappearance of their natural habitat and their favorite food? Australian scientists have found the solution, by having them ingest fecal matter.
To modify the intestinal flora
The researchers ingested these materials, packaged in capsule form, in marsupials, in order to modify the microbial flora present in their intestines. An alteration that allows them to eat more varieties of eucalyptus.
In this study published Tuesday in Animal Microbiome , Michaela Blyton of the School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at the University of Queensland, Australia, says she was pushed to act after seeing a significant drop in koala populations. at Cape Otway, along the famous Great Ocean Road, in the state of Victoria. "In 2013 the population of koalas reached a very high density, which led them to eat all the trees of their favorite species," noted Ms. Blyton, who led this experiment.
70% mortality of koalas
This resulted in a frightening death rate of 70% of koalas, due to famine caused by the disappearance of their favorite trees. But most have not tried to eat another species of eucalyptus to survive. "This led me and my colleague Ben Moore of Western University in Sydney to ask if the microbes in the intestines of the koalas, their microbiome, did not limit the type of trees they could eat. if it would not be possible to extend their diet through the inoculation of feces "other marsupials used to eat another species of eucalyptus, took over Michaela Blyton.
These capsules have successfully modified the microbiomes of koalas, which could thus start to eat the second kind of trees that most of them had previously shunned. "Koalas may have problems adapting to new diets when the trees they normally eat disappear, or when they are displaced.This study proves that the concept of fecal capsules can successfully introduce new microbes in the intestines of koalas, "said Blyton.