Impact of social media-driven feeding practices on the gut microbiome of captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Surin, Thailand

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of social media-driven live-streaming dietary supplementation on the gastrointestinal microbial community of captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) at the Elephant Kingdom, Surin Province, Thailand. A hierarchical two-tier observational design was used: Tier 1 compared a minimal-supplementation control group (Group H, n = 6) with a frequent heterogeneous-supplementation group (Group L, n = 18); Tier 2 compared, within Group L, low-frequency (Group A, ≤ 3 sessions per week, n = 7) and high-frequency (Group B, > 3 sessions per week, n = 11) live-streaming sub-groups. Faecal microbial profiles were obtained by 16S rRNA gene (V3–V4) sequencing on an Illumina NovaSeq platform. Alpha diversity was tested by pairwise Wilcoxon rank-sum (Mann–Whitney U) tests; beta diversity by PERMANOVA on Bray–Curtis, weighted UniFrac and unweighted UniFrac distances; differential abundance by Metastats with Benjamini–Hochberg FDR correction and by LEfSe biomarker discovery. The community was dominated by Firmicutes (54.80%), Bacteroidota (26.30%), Verrucomicrobiota (5.28%), Actinobacteriota (3.63%), and Spirochaetota (3.47%). Alpha diversity did not differ between Groups H and L or between Groups A and B (all P > 0.05), and the dietary contrast in beta diversity was not statistically significant (Bray–Curtis PERMANOVA R² = 0.053, P = 0.092). Caldisericota was the only phylum to retain significance after FDR correction, being detected exclusively in Group H (Q = 0.022); LEfSe additionally identified Prevotellaceae as enriched in Group L (LDA = 4.17). These findings indicate that the captive Asian elephant gut microbiome is largely resilient at the community level to social media-driven dietary supplementation, while specific lineage-level signals — notably Caldisericota and Prevotellaceae — distinguish the dietary groups and warrant confirmation in larger longitudinal and functionally resolved studies.