Diet or phylogeny?: The gut microbiota of leaf-eating primates

AMATO, KATHERINE; KOWALEWSKI, M MARTIN; DI FIORE, ANTHONY; LINK, ANDRES; CASSALETT, SANTIAGO; STUMPF, REBECCA; NELSON, KAREN; WHITE, BRYAN; KNIGHT, ROB; LEIGH, STEVE R

Seul

Simposio; 15th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology; 2014

International Society for Microbial Ecology

The contributions of the gut microbiota to mammalian digestive efficiency and nutrition vary in response to its composition. Host diet and physiology are known to impact gut microbiota composition over a variety of timescales, but host phylogeny also has an influence. As a result, the gut microbiota is believed to share a strong co-evolutionary relationship with mammalian hosts. However, while host phylogeny has been reported to have a stronger influence on the gut microbiota than either diet or physiology in some cases, few studies have examined the relationship between host diet, phylogeny and the gut microbiota in wild mammal populations where environmental variation and selective pressure is greatest. Here, we analyze the gut microbiota of wild primates to determine the relative influences of host dietary syndrome and phylogeny on its structure. Despite sharing a common ancestor that is believed to have utilized a diet based on insects and fruits, extant primates exhibit a wide range of diet specializations. In particular, the ability to seasonally consume large proportions of leaves has evolved several times within the primate phylogeny. The gut microbiota is thought to play an important role in improving the digestion of fiber and toxins associated with a leafy diet, but it is unclear whether all leaf-eating primates rely on the same gut microbes to perform these functions or whether different primate lineages exhibit different gut microbial communities irrespective of diet. To determine if leaf-eating results in the convergence of gut microbiota across primate taxa or if host phylogeny drives the composition of the gut microbiota, we used pyrosequencing (Illumina MiSeq) to describe the fecal microbiota from a variety of wild, leaf-eating primate species (Alouatta pigra, A. caraya, A. palliata, A. seniculus, Propithecus verreauxi, Lepilemur hubbardi, Colobus guereza, Procolobus rufomitratus, and Gorilla gorilla) and closely-related wild, fruit-eating primates species (Ateles belzebuth, At. hybridus, Lagothrix lagotricha, Propithecus edwardsi, Cercopithecus ascanius, and Pan troglodytes). Using these data, we discuss patterns in microbial diversity and community composition across the primate phylogeny and explore the idea of a ?core? gut microbiota in leaf-eating primates