A tale of fecal transplants Down Under hints that microbes could help choosy koalas expand their diets.
Capsules loaded with intestinal bacteria changed the gut microbial communities of recipient koalas, and may have helped shift the animals’ diets. These fecal transplants gave microbes from koalas that mostly ate one type of eucalyptus, called messmate, to other koalas that usually munched manna gum, a different eucalypt. Some of the koalas that received the treatment upped their messmate intake, researchers report August 21 in Animal Microbiome.
“The more that [the microbial community] changed, the more messmate they ate, which suggests that the microbiome is influencing what the koalas are able to eat,” says Michaela Blyton, an animal ecologist and microbiologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
Some koalas will eat several eucalypts, while others stick to one type. The animals are listed as vulnerable in some parts of Australia, and a restricted diet can get them into trouble. In 2013, the koala population in Cape Otway in southern Australia boomed and chowed through leaves of their preferred manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis), killing many of the trees. Even though messmate (Eucalyptus obliqua) was available, koalas there starved to death. So having a tool to help make the animals less choosy when it comes to food could be useful for conservation.