Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZB, UK.
School of Life Sciences and Education, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 2RU, UK.
Sci Rep. 2021 Aug 18;11(1):16791. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-96324-5.
Dietary niche is fundamental for determining species ecology; thus, a detailed understanding of what drives variation in dietary niche is vital for predicting ecological shifts and could have implications for species management. Gut microbiota can be important for determining an organism's dietary preference, and therefore which food resources they are likely to exploit. Evidence for whether the composition of the gut microbiota is plastic in response to changes in diet is mixed. Also, the extent to which dietary preference can be changed following colonisation by new gut microbiota from different species is unknown. Here, we use Drosophila spp. to show that: (1) the composition of an individual's gut microbiota can change in response to dietary changes, and (2) ingestion of foreign gut microbes can cause individuals to be attracted to food types they previously had a strong aversion to. Thus, we expose a mechanism for facilitating rapid shifts in dietary niche over short evolutionary timescales.
饮食生态位对确定物种的生态起着根本作用；因此，深入了解哪些因素驱动饮食生态位的变化对于预测生态转变至关重要，并且可能对物种管理具有影响。肠道微生物群对于确定生物体的饮食偏好很重要，因此它们可能会利用哪些食物资源。关于肠道微生物群的组成是否会因饮食变化而发生可塑性变化的证据是混杂的。此外，在被来自不同物种的新肠道微生物群定植后，饮食偏好可以在多大程度上发生变化也是未知的。在这里，我们使用果蝇属来表明：（1）个体的肠道微生物群的组成可以响应饮食变化而改变，（2）摄入外来肠道微生物会导致个体被以前强烈厌恶的食物类型所吸引。因此，我们揭示了一种在短进化时间尺度上促进饮食生态位快速转变的机制。
