Abstract

Feather-Degrading Bacteria in a Tropical Environment

Student: Kyle Davis
Faculty Mentors: Laura Tuhela-Reuning (OWU Department of Botany and Microbiology) and Dustin Reichard (OWU Department of Zoology)

Bacteria have been found that can degrade feathers. I am looking to see if they can be found in Costa Rica, a country in the Neotropics. If feather-degrading bacteria is found in Costa Rica then tests will be ran to see how quickly it degrade feathers compared to bacteria found in the United States.

Bacteria can use a variety of pathways to gain the resources they need to survive and replicate. Bacteria have been found in chicken coops that degrade the Beta-keratin of feathers. Later, featherdegrading bacteria were found on free ranging, wild birds within the United States. Most research on feather-degrading bacteria has been conducted in temperate regions within the United States. Researchers have started to look for feather-degrading bacteria in areas such as Australia and Europe. Although more research is being conducted on feather-degrading bacteria, very little research has focused on the Neotropics. Our research aims to find and characterize feather-degrading bacteria found within Costa Rica, a country within the Neotropics. Bacteria were collected from feathers taken from the venter, back, and tail of birds captured in mist nets from June through July. Once collected, feathers were placed in Whirl-Pack Bags and stored in a refrigerator at the Monteverde Institute until mid-August. Feather samples were transported back to Ohio Wesleyan University where they could be tested for feather-degrading bacteria. Bacteria will be collected from the feathers with sterile saline and spread onto Tryptic Soy Agar. Bacteria will be incubated at 37°C for two days. After incubating, colonies will be counted and any possible featherdegrading bacteria will be identified by morphology. The possible feather-degrading bacteria will be streaked for isolation and featherdegrading tests will be conducted. Bacteria that are able to degrade feathers will be stored on CryoBeads and placed in our featherdegrading bacteria collection. Birds with feather-degrading bacteria will be compared to see if their life history influences the amount of feather-degrading bacteria found on them. How quickly the feather is degraded will be compared between samples found within Costa Rica and the United States.