Population Dynamics and the Microbiome in a Wild Boreal Mammal: The Snowshoe Hare Cycle and Impacts of Diet, Season and Predation Risk.

ABSTRACT: The North American boreal forest is a massive ecosystem, and its keystone herbivore is the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). Hares are exposed to considerable environmental extremes in diet and weather, food availability, and predation risk. Gut microbiomes have been suggested to facilitate adaptive animal responses to environmental change, but severe environmental challenges to homeostasis can also disrupt host-microbiome relationships. To better understand gut microbiome contributions to animal acclimation, we studied the faecal bacterial microbiome of wild hares across two types of extreme environmental change that are integral to their natural history: (1) seasonal transitions between summer and winter, and (2) changes over the ~10 year 'boom-bust' population cycles that are characteri

SUBMITTER: Stothart MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11754720 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature