Journal article
Social networks strongly predict the gut microbiota of wild mice
- Abstract:
- The mammalian gut teems with microbes, yet how hosts acquire these symbionts remains poorly understood. Research in primates suggests that microbes can be picked up via social contact, but the role of social interactions in non-group-living species remains underexplored. Here, we use a passive tracking system to collect high resolution spatiotemporal activity data from wild mice (Apodemus sylvaticus). Social network analysis revealed social association strength to be the strongest predictor of microbiota similarity among individuals, controlling for factors including spatial proximity and kinship, which had far smaller or nonsignificant effects. This social effect was limited to interactions involving males (male-male and male-female), implicating sex-dependent behaviours as driving processes. Social network position also predicted microbiota richness, with well-connected individuals having the most diverse microbiotas. Overall, these findings suggest social contact provides a key transmission pathway for gut symbionts even in relatively asocial mammals, that strongly shapes the adult gut microbiota. This work underlines the potential for individuals to pick up beneficial symbionts as well as pathogens from social interactions.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.3MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41396-021-00949-3
Authors
+ Natural Environment Research Council
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- Grant:
- NE/S010335/1
- Grant:
- NE/L011867/3
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- ISME Journal More from this journal
- Volume:
- 15
- Issue:
- 9
- Pages:
- 2601-2613
- Publication date:
- 2021-03-17
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-02-19
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1751-7370
- ISSN:
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1751-7362
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1169701
- Local pid:
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pubs:1169701
- Deposit date:
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2021-04-08
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Raulo et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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