Host and Microbe Scale Processes Shape Spatial Variation in <i>Aphaenogaster</i> (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Genetics and Their Microbiota.

ABSTRACT: Like all ecological communities, host-associated (HA) microbiota are shaped by environmental selection and dispersal limitation. However, unlike communities of free-living organisms, communities of HA microbes experience selection and dispersal at two separate scales - the scale of the microbes and the scale of their hosts. Thus, HA microbes must tolerate not only the environment created by their host (microbe-scale environment), but also, the environment in which their host resides (host-scale environment). Likewise, HA microbes can disperse between hosts through either horizontal or vertical transmission (microbe-scale dispersal) but can also disperse between locations through host movement (host-scale dispersal). In this paper, we examine how multiscale environmental selection and dispe

SUBMITTER: Malagon DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12363881 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature