Metabarcoding of fecal pellets in wild muskox populations reveals negative relationships between microbiome and diet alpha diversity

Microbiome diversity and diet composition concomitantly influence species health, fitness, immunity, and digestion. In environments where diet varies spatially and temporally, microbiome plasticity may promote rapid host adaptation to available resources. For northern ungulates in particular, metabarcoding of noninvasively collected fecal pellets presents unprecedented insights into their diverse ecological requirements and niches by clarifying the interrelationships of microbiomes, key to deriving nutrients, in context of altered forage availability in changing climates. Muskoxen () are Arctic-adapted species that experience fluctuating qualities and quantities of vegetation. Geography and seasonality have been noted to influence microbiome composition and diversity in muskoxen, yet it is unclear how their microbiomes intersect with diet. Following observations from other species, we hypothesized increasing diet diversity would result in higher microbiome diversity in muskoxen. We assessed diet composition in muskoxen using three common plant metabarcoding markers and explored correlations with microbiome data. Patterns of dietary diversity and composition were not fully concordant among the markers used, yet all reflected the primary consumption of willows and sedges. Individuals with similar diets had more similar microbiomes, yet in contrast to most literature, yielded negative relationships between microbiome and diet alpha diversity. This negative correlation may reflect the unique capacities of muskoxen to survive solely on high-fiber Arctic forage and provide insight into their resiliency to exploit changing dietary resources in a rapidly warming Arctic altering vegetation diversity.