This systematic review aims to investigate how urban living influences the microbiome of wildlife. We included all studies that compared the bacterial communities of non-human vertebrate wildlife living inside vs outside cities, and/or across an urbanisation gradient. We found that the effect of urban-living on bacterial diversity and community composition was not unidirectional: some studies found a positive association, others found a negative association, and some found no relationship. The definition of ‘urban’ was not specified in more than half of the studies, and when included was not consistent across studies; paired with limited site replication in many studies, these features could have obscured the impacts of urban living. Most studies also focused on urban-adapted wildlife species. Future studies that include clear definitions for ‘urban’ environments and good replication of land uses within contrasting environments would help clarify the impact of urban living on wildlife microbiomes and wildlife health.
See how this article has been cited at scite.ai
scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.