Hello and welcome to your Daily Fun Fact From Flora ,

Today we are going to have a little look at conservation and some of the problems that arise when we keep animals in captivity for long periods of time.

Some of them are pretty predictable — species forgetting how to hunt , species not knowing their migratory paths, species becoming too used to human beings , species exhibiting altered or distressed behaviours etc

Some are less predictable — like how being in captivity affects their microbiome.

The microbiome includes the microbiota (all the living microorganisms) and the environment they are living in. Changing the diets of animals going into captivity changes this.

There is something that my lecturers referred to as the “ Gastrointestinal Enigma of Pandas” (not quite as magical as it sounds) which is that they have a waaay shorter gastrointestinal tract that you would expect from a herbivore.

In fact — even though they only eat bamboo , their microbiome is more like that of a carnivore.

Scientists wanted to know what the effect of being in captivity was having on pandas and how it was altering their microbiome. This of course varies according to what they have been fed and any antibiotics they"ve been given.

And sadly captive pandas were actually found to have a reduced ability to degrade cellulose , a key structural components of plant matter. We can’t digest it either, but also rely on bacteria in our gut to do it for us.

This may mean that captive pandas will not be able to go back to a wild diet of eating solely bamboo.

Not only that, but genes for antibiotic resistance , virulence (i.e. causing illness instead of being a mutualistic bacterium) and heavy metal tolerance (genes that Charlie , Lauren and I have had for years) were much higher in the microbiome of captive pandas.

So there is a bit of concern about how these genes would spread if the pandas were released back into the wild.

What a useless animal. At least they’re cute.

Lots of love,

Flora xx

DON"T TAKE MY BALL