Beeby Nina, Pierre Lahitsara Jean, Guy Razafindraibe Faustin Jean, Justin Rakotonjatovo, Victor Tombotiana Aimé, Rossi Giulia, van den Hout Lotte, Rothman Jessica M, Amato Katherine R, Webster Timothy H, Baden Andrea L
Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Anthropology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):21110. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-07399-3.
Much of what we know about drivers of mammalian gut microbiome (GM) variation focuses on limited seasonal data, or effects of dietary fiber, particularly in leaf-eating and grazing taxa. We know little about the synergistic relationships between climate, diet, nutrition, and GM dynamics in wild mammals-particularly in fruit-eating taxa. Here, we examined GM variation across 12 months in a fruit-specialist primate, the black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), which is known to experience substantial environmental variation in its rainforest habitat in Madagascar. We used mixed modeling approaches to estimate the effects of climate, diet, and nutrient intakes on GM alpha diversity and differential abundances. We found substantial intra- and inter-individual GM variation. Climate and nutrient intakes impacted GM alpha diversity, and in addition to degree of frugivory and dietary diversity, each drove changes in differential abundance of unique combinations of microbial taxa. The degree of frugivory predicted few microbial abundances while nutrient intakes predicted a wide diversity, with fibers and non-structural carbohydrates showing inverse patterns to those of fat, indicating that nutrients are more important in driving the GM than simply the food types consumed. These results highlight how physiological flexibility facilitated by GM plasticity may be key to fruit-specialists' survival of fruit scarcity.
我们对哺乳动物肠道微生物群（GM）变异驱动因素的了解，大多集中在有限的季节性数据，或膳食纤维的影响上，尤其是在食叶和食草类群中。我们对野生哺乳动物，特别是食果类群中气候、饮食、营养与GM动态之间的协同关系知之甚少。在此，我们研究了一种食果专家灵长类动物——黑白领狐猴（Varecia variegata）在12个月内的GM变异情况，该物种在马达加斯加的雨林栖息地会经历显著的环境变化。我们使用混合建模方法来估计气候、饮食和营养摄入对GMα多样性和差异丰度的影响。我们发现个体内和个体间存在大量的GM变异。气候和营养摄入影响了GMα多样性，除了食果程度和饮食多样性外，它们各自还推动了微生物类群独特组合的差异丰度变化。食果程度预测的微生物丰度较少，而营养摄入预测的微生物多样性广泛，纤维和非结构性碳水化合物呈现出与脂肪相反的模式，这表明营养在驱动GM方面比单纯的食物类型更为重要。这些结果凸显了GM可塑性所带来的生理灵活性，可能是食果专家在果实稀缺情况下生存的关键。
