Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social environment and gut microbiome plasticity in primates

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

The gut microbiome is the community of bacteria that resides in the gastrointestinal tract, and past research has demonstrated that this community is physiologically important to its host. However, researchers do not yet fully understand why the gut microbiome varies so much from individual to individual. This doctoral dissertation project will examine how social behaviors such as physical proximity and infant care-giving affect gut microbiome transmission among adult and infant individuals in a wild primate population. This research will therefore advance fundamental knowledge about microbiome variation in a non-human primate and may also inform microbiome research in humans. The project will facilitate the completion of a doctoral degree by a woman in science, contribute to the training of multiple undergraduate students in scientific laboratory and field methods, and engage young women and other underrepresented groups in STEM through public outreach. In addition, the work will provide wildlife education to local school children, ecotourists, tour guides, and field assistants near the research site through training and public outreach, which will increase local human resource capacity and aid in the conservation of a critically endangered primate species. A mounting body of evidence suggests that the gut microbiome is an important phenotypic trait in understanding human biological variation and well-being. However, we still lack a necessary understanding of the factors that shape phenotypic and developmental plasticity in this trait. A primary factor affecting variation in the gut microbiome that remains unclear is the longitudinal effect of social environment on the composition of the gut microbiome. Further, we do not understand how socially-mediated transmission affects the assembly of the gut microbiome during development, which is a critical window thought to have long-reaching effects later in life. The primate model system allows examination of how the gut microbiome changes with shifting social dynamics because adult female social bonds are known to fluctuate following infant births and infants receive variable amounts of social contact via allomaternal care (caretaking behaviors by individuals other than the mother). Using a combination of detailed behavioral data and microbial DNA sequencing in longitudinally collected fecal samples, this research will determine the effect size of social transmission of gut microbes among socially interacting adult females and between allomothers and infants. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.