Bacterial and Archaeal Diversity in the Gastrointestinal Tract of the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis)

The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is the second largest living rodent and an iconic symbol of Canada. The beaver is a semi-aquatic browser whose diet consists of lignocellulose from a variety of plants. The beaver is a hindgut fermenter and has an enlarged ceacum that houses a complex microbiome. There have been few studies examining the microbial diversity in gastrointestinal tract of hindgut fermenting herbivores. To examine the bacterial and archaeal communities inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract of the beaver, the microbiome of the ceacum and feaces was examined using culture-independent methods. DNA from the microbial community of the ceacum and feaces of 4 adult beavers was extracted, and the 16S rRNA gene was sequenced using either bacterial or archaeal specific primers. A total of 1447 and 1435 unique bacterial OTUs were sequenced from the ceacum and feaces, respectively. On average, the majority of OTUs within the ceacum were classified as Bacteroidetes (49.2%) and Firmicutes (47.6%). The feaces was also dominated by OTUs from Bacteroidetes (36.8%) and Firmicutes (58.9%). The composition of bacterial community was not significantly different among animals. The composition of the ceacal and feacal microbiome differed, but this difference is due to changes in the abundance of closely related OTUs, not because of major differences in the taxonomic composition of the communities. Within these communities, known degraders of lignocellulose were identified. In contrast, to the bacterial microbiome, the archaeal community was dominated by a single species of methanogen, Methanosphaera stadtmanae. The data presented here provide the first insight into the microbial community within the hindgut of the beaver.