The effects of host ecology and phylogeny on gut microbiota (non)parallelism across birds and mammals.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

What are the roles of determinism and contingency in evolution? The paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould raised this question in his famous thought experiment of "replaying life's tape." Settings where independent lineages have repeatedly adapted to similar ecological niches (i.e., parallel evolution) are well suited to address this question. Here, we quantified whether repeated ecological shifts across 53 mammalian and 50 avian host species are associated with parallel gut microbiota changes. Our results indicate that parallel shifts in host diet are associated with greater gut microbiota parallelism (i.e., more deterministic). While further research will be necessary to obtain a comprehensive picture of the circumstances under which deterministic

SUBMITTER: Harer A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10732045 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature