Gut microflora may facilitate adaptation to anthropic habitat: A comparative study in <i>Rattus</i>

Varudkar, Amruta; Ramakrishnan, Uma

doi:10.1002/ece3.4040

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…R. norvegicus and M. musculus , family Muridae). Varudkar & Ramakrishnan (2018) previously reported a similar pattern while comparing the GM of two phylogenetically related rats in rural and urban habitats. Habitat emerged as the main predictor of GM diversity and composition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

Effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota

Bouilloud,

Galan,

Pradel

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Urbanization significantly impacts wild populations, favoring urban dweller species over those that are unable to adapt to rapid and abrupt changes. One possible explanation for differential adaptative abilities between these species is that the microbiome may modulate the host phenotype rapidly through a high degree of flexibility. Conversely, under such anthropic perturbations, the microbiota composition of some species could be disrupted, resulting in dysbiosis and negative impacts on host fitness, potentially causing local extirpation. The links between the impact of urbanization on host communities and their gut microbiota have only been scarcely explored. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the gut microbiota (GM) could play a role in host adaptation to urban environments. We addressed this question by studying several species of small terrestrial mammals sampled in forested areas along a forested gradient of urbanization (from rural forests to urban parks) during 2020 fall. The gut was collected and bacteria were described using a 16S metabarcoding approach. We tested whether urbanization led to changes in small mammal communities and in their GM. We analyzed these changes in terms of the presence and abundance of taxa and their putative functions to decipher the processes underlying these changes. We found that urbanization had marked impacts on small mammal communities and their GM, either directly or indirectly depending on small mammal species categories. The urban dweller species had a lower taxonomic diversity but a higher functional diversity and a different composition compared to urban adapter species. Their GM assembly was mostly governed by stochastic effects, which could indicate dysbiosis in these urban species. Selection processes and an overabundance of functions were detected that could be associated with adaptation to urban environments despite potential dysbiosis. Urbanization could also impact the diversity and taxonomic composition of GM in urban adapter species. However, their functional diversity and composition remained relatively stable. This observation can be explained by functional redundancy, where certain taxa express the same function. This could explain the adaptation of urban adapter species in various environments, including urban settings. We can therefore assume that there are feedback loops between the gut microbiota and the host species within communities, enabling rapid and flexible adaptation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

Effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota

Bouilloud,

Galan,

Pradel

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Specifically, we observed that the structure of gut microbiota differed between categories, but were similar within each category, whatever the phylogenetic distance between small mammal species. Varudkar & Ramakrishnan [ 102 ] previously reported a similar pattern while comparing the GM of two phylogenetically related rats in rural and urban habitats. Habitat emerged as the main predictor of GM diversity and composition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Exploring the potential effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota

Bouilloud,

Galan,

Pradel

et al. 2024

anim microbiome

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Urbanization significantly impacts wild populations, favoring urban dweller species over those that are unable to adapt to rapid changes. These differential adaptative abilities could be mediated by the microbiome, which may modulate the host phenotype rapidly through a high degree of flexibility. Conversely, under anthropic perturbations, the microbiota of some species could be disrupted, resulting in dysbiosis and negative impacts on host fitness. The links between the impact of urbanization on host communities and their gut microbiota (GM) have only been scarcely explored. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the bacterial composition of the GM could play a role in host adaptation to urban environments. We described the GM of several species of small terrestrial mammals sampled in forested areas along a gradient of urbanization, using a 16S metabarcoding approach. We tested whether urbanization led to changes in small mammal communities and in their GM, considering the presence and abundance of bacterial taxa and their putative functions. This enabled to decipher the processes underlying these changes. We found potential impacts of urbanization on small mammal communities and their GM. The urban dweller species had a lower bacterial taxonomic diversity but a higher functional diversity and a different composition compared to urban adapter species. Their GM assembly was mostly governed by stochastic effects, potentially indicating dysbiosis. Selection processes and an overabundance of functions were detected that could be associated with adaptation to urban environments despite dysbiosis. In urban adapter species, the GM functional diversity and composition remained relatively stable along the urbanization gradient. This observation can be explained by functional redundancy, where certain taxa express the same function. This could favor the adaptation of urban adapter species in various environments, including urban settings. We can therefore assume that there are feedbacks between the gut microbiota and host species within communities, enabling rapid adaptation.

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“…Diet also strongly influences the gut microbiome. Gut microbes can influence food intake ( Jia et al, 2021 ; Ousey et al, 2023 ), behavior ( Jia et al, 2021 ; Ousey et al, 2023 ) and health ( Fontana and Partridge, 2015 ): in rats, for example, gut microbiota may enhance survival in human-dominated environments, with city-dwelling common black rats containing microflora different from those in non-commensal forest-dwelling species ( Varudkar and Ramakrishnan, 2018 ). It is difficult to causally link microbiome composition to behavior, but there has been some success in invertebrate models ( Petersen and Osvatic, 2018 ).…”

Section: The 10 Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fantastic beasts and how to study them: rethinking experimental animal behavior

Ding,

Fox,

Gordus

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Humans have been trying to understand animal behavior at least since recorded history. Recent rapid development of new technologies has allowed us to make significant progress in understanding the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying behavior, a key goal of neuroethology. However, there is a tradeoff when studying animal behavior and its underlying biological mechanisms: common behavior protocols in the laboratory are designed to be replicable and controlled, but they often fail to encompass the variability and breadth of natural behavior. This Commentary proposes a framework of 10 key questions that aim to guide researchers in incorporating a rich natural context into their experimental design or in choosing a new animal study system. The 10 questions cover overarching experimental considerations that can provide a template for interspecies comparisons, enable us to develop studies in new model organisms and unlock new experiments in our quest to understand behavior.

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Gut microflora may facilitate adaptation to anthropic habitat: A comparative study in Rattus

Cited by 5 publications

References 61 publications

Effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota

Effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota

Exploring the potential effects of forest urbanization on the interplay between small mammal communities and their gut microbiota

Fantastic beasts and how to study them: rethinking experimental animal behavior

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