Symbionts are crucial for ecosystem stability: they regulate host populations and support food webs, where parasites alone are responsible for 75% of the network links (Lafferty, Dobson, & Kuris, 2006). Symbionts (i.e., parasites, mutualists and commensalists that intimately interact with their hosts Leung & Poulin, 2008) comprise the most diverse group of organisms on Earth (Dobson, Lafferty, Kuris, Hechinger, & Jetz, 2008 Larsen, Miller, Rhodes, & Wiens, 2017 Poulin & Morand, 2000, 2004). Altogether, our results shed light on the long‐standing question of the nature of the relationship between birds and their vane‐dwelling feather mites, supporting previous evidence for a commensalistic–mutualistic role of feather mites, which are revealed as likely fungivore–microbivore–detritivore symbionts of bird feathers. In addition, we found a high prevalence of both keratinophilic and pathogenic fungal taxa in the feather mite species examined. Importantly, we did not find any evidence of feather mites feeding upon bird resources (e.g., blood, skin) other than potentially uropygial gland oil. Diatoms and plant matter appeared as rare food resources for feather mites. Results showed fungi and potentially bacteria as the main food resources for feather mites (apart from potential bird uropygial gland oil). Second, we used high‐throughput sequencing ( HTS) and DNA metabarcoding to determine gut contents from 1,833 individual mites of 18 species inhabiting 18 bird species. First, we used light microscopy to examine the gut contents of 1,300 individual feather mites representing 100 mite genera (18 families) from 190 bird species belonging to 72 families and 19 orders. For this purpose, we studied the diet of feather mites using two complementary methods. In this study, we have investigated the nature of the symbiotic relationship between birds and their most abundant and diverse ectosymbionts: the vane‐dwelling feather mites. However, most symbiont systems, especially those involving commensals and mutualists, are relatively poorly understood. Parasites and other symbionts are crucial components of ecosystems, regulating host populations and supporting food webs.
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