Temporal patterns of gut microbiota in lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer) living in intact and disturbed habitats in a novel sample type.

ABSTRACT: The gut microbiome is a plastic phenotype; gut microbial composition is highly variable across an individual host's lifetime and between host social groups, and this variation has consequences for host health. However, we do not yet fully understand how longitudinal microbial dynamics and their social drivers may be influenced by ecological stressors, such as habitat degradation. Answering these questions is difficult in most wild animal systems, as it requires long-term collections of matched host, microbiome, and environmental trait data. To test if temporal and social influences on microbiome composition differ by the history of human disturbance, we leveraged banked, desiccated fecal samples collected over 5 months in 2004 from two ecologically distinct populations of wild, red-bellied

SUBMITTER: Grieneisen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11650932 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature