Doctoral Dissertation Research: Early Life Adversity and Gut Microbiota Composition

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This doctoral dissertation research project examines the effects of alpha male takeovers and infanticidal attacks on infant social adversity and gut microbiota in wild primates. Infants may experience significant stress even if they survive an attack. Stressors can cause the developing gut microbiota to destabilize, which may negatively affect host digestion and immunity. The team investigates whether gut microbiota changes are long-lasting or if they can be overcome with stable environments later in life. The project advances research experiences for first-generation researchers and women in STEM and provides training opportunities in genetic laboratory methods for undergraduate and graduate students at a Hispanic-serving public university. Research results are communicated to site managers and the local community at the field location, contributing to primate management plans and local conservation efforts of critically endangered wild primates. This project examines how gut microbiota development associates with ecological and social stressors experienced early in life. Leveraging 15 years of data from a wild population of the critically endangered primate Colobus vellerosus, the researchers investigate: 1) whether adverse conditions (i.e., low food availability, loss of maternal kin, alpha male takeovers, and elevated infanticide risk) predict infant gut microbiota composition; and 2) whether these adverse conditions, either currently experienced and/or experienced as an infant, predict the gut microbiota during juvenescence, subadulthood, or adulthood. Monthly ecological data and weekly demographic data are used to determine food abundance, competition for food, alpha male takeovers, infanticide risk, and presence of maternal kin. The composition of the gut microbiota is determined from 16S rRNA gene sequencing using C. vellerosus fecal samples from infants and from individuals at later age life stages with known infancy conditions. The project addresses immediate relationships between early life adversity and gut microbiota in infancy and whether these potential changes associated with adverse conditions in infancy persist into later life stages.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.