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But the creatures appear to have evolved to get the most out of what they eat, according to a new study.
Their gut bacteria change in late spring and early summer, when bamboo is most nutritious, as it sprouts green, protein-rich shoots. The bacteria causes the bear to gain more weight and store more fat, which researchers say could compensate for a lack of nutrients later in the year, when bamboo plants have only fibrous leaves to nibble.
“We’ve known for a long time that these pandas have a different gut microbiota during sprout-eating season, and it’s very evident that they’re chubtier this time of year,” the lead author said. study, Guangping Huang, researcher. for the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a press release.
The study was published Tuesday in the journal Cell Reports.
To study how gut bacteria might affect a panda’s metabolism, the team first collected feces from eight wild giant pandas in China’s Qingling Mountains during leaf-eating season and shoot-eating season. , then looked at how the poo samples differed.
They found that a bacterium called Clostridium butyricum was more abundant in the innards of pandas during the season when they enjoy fresh bamboo shoots.
To figure out if this bacteria helps bears gain and store weight, the researchers performed a fecal transplant, placing the panda poo they collected into lab mice. Then they fed the mice for three weeks with a bamboo-based diet that simulated what pandas eat.
Although mice are very different from pandas, it was not possible to perform such tests on endangered and vulnerable animals, said Wei Fuwen, co-author of the study and professor at the Key Lab of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology from the Institute of Zoology. at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Mice were a good substitute.
“Mice have proven to be an effective model for studying gut microbiome function in humans,” Wei said via email.
The researchers found that mice transplanted with panda feces collected during the sprout-eating season gained significantly more weight, despite consuming the same amount of food.
“Gut bacteria was the only variable in this research,” Wei explained.
Felix Sommer, group leader of host microbiome functional research at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, noted that the number of pandas involved in the study was small and the experiment had only been performed only once. Sommer, who was not involved in the research, also pointed out that the researchers found a correlation, not a causal relationship, between the bacteria and weight gain.
“I would have asked for some kind of validation experiment or resampling in another year or another time,” Sommer, who conducted similar research on hibernating brown bears, said by email.
Wei said more work is needed to validate the causal relationship directly in pandas. He added that their work could help improve the health of captive giant pandas.
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