Parallel signatures of mammalian domestication and human industrialization in the gut microbiota

Abstract

Domestication may have had convergent effects on the microbiota of domesticates and 15 humans through analogous ecological shifts. Comparing the gut microbiota of domestic and related 16 wild mammals plus humans and chimpanzees, we found consistent shifts in composition in 17 domestic animals and in humans from industrialized but not traditional societies. Reciprocal diet 18 switches in mice and canids demonstrated that diet played a dominant role in shaping the domestic 19 gut microbiota, with stronger responses in the member of the wild-domestic pair with higher 20 dietary and microbial diversity. Laboratory mice recovered wild-like microbial diversity and 21 responsiveness with experimental colonization. We conclude that domestication and 22 65 the average of its host pair along the first and second NMDS axis. Domestic individuals were 66 typically further right (axis 1: P<0.001, Mann-Whitney U test; Fig. 1C) and further up (axis 2: 67 P=0.007; Fig. 1D) relative to the average of their host pair. Domestic species all displayed these 68 shifts, whether classified as laboratory, agricultural, or companion animals (P<0.05, Mann-69

Variation in Microbial Exposure at the Human-Animal Interface and the Implications for Microbiome-Mediated Health Outcome

“…Furthermore, domesticated animals, such as livestock and pets, along with urban-adapted animals, represent a breadth of environmental and lifestyle settings that emulate what is seen in human populations across the globe. Domestication itself is associated with shifts in gut microbial communities across multiple mammalian host species ( 120 – 122 ), and the microbial changes resulting from animal domestication parallel those from human industrialization ( 121 ). Just as humans experience shifts in factors that impact the microbiome during industrialization, so do domesticated animals experience new diets, altered social structures, and different housing and environmental exposure relative to their wild progenitors.…”