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The ecology within: The impact of gut ecosystem dynamics on host fitness in the wild

内部生态：肠道生态系统动态对野生宿主健康的影响

基本信息

批准号：
NE/R016801/1
负责人：
Daniel Nussey
金额：
$ 302.65万
依托单位：
University of Edinburgh
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2019 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FR016801%2F1
关键词：
ecology within impact gut ecosystem

项目摘要

Individual animals are typically home to a staggeringly complex community of smaller organisms. This observation has led researchers to consider individuals as ecosystems in their own right, challenging us to think in new ways about how ecological processes may drive variation in an individual's health and fitness. The gut is rapidly emerging as an important example of how such within-individual ecosystems might interface with host physiology and health. In vertebrates, the gut is home not only to trillions of 'friendly' bacteria (the 'microbiota'), which have an essential role in extracting nutrition from food consumed, but also to diverse communities of parasites, which compete with their host for resources and can cause serious illness. The potential significance of this gut ecosystem for our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of wild animal populations is immense. However, our current understanding of the drivers of gut ecosystem dynamics and their consequences for host fitness in natural populations is very limited. The application of new next-generation sequencing methods to faecal samples represents a potentially transformative approach to non-invasively monitor gut community dynamics and diet in wild animals. This approach has already revolutionised our understanding of the human gut bacteria community and its role in health and disease, but has yet to be applied to wild study systems in which individual genotype, diet, immunity and fitness are all closely monitored. This project will apply this approach to faecal samples collected longitudinally from an exceptionally well-studied wild mammal population to simultaneously monitor variation in gut bacteria, protozoan and nematode communities and diet. This will allow us to address fundamental outstanding questions about which factors drive gut community dynamics within individuals and the outcomes of these dynamics for health and fitness under natural conditions. Our study system, the Soay sheep of St Kilda, will allow us to regularly and repeatedly sample known individuals with well-characterised genetics, environmental experiences and reproductive history. Our project will also involve the development and application of a novel statistical approach to integrate data on gut community ecology with our understanding of host ecology and genetics, and new ecological and epidemiological models that will transform our understanding of how the gut ecosystem impacts on host population and disease dynamics in nature. Our project will provide the first integrated study mapping the relationships between gut commensal and parasite communities, host diet, immunity and fitness in the wild. Our findings will profoundly improve our understanding of the significance of within-host ecosystem across a broad range of ecological disciplines within NERC's remit, including population, community, disease and evolutionary ecology.

个体动物通常是一个由更小的生物体组成的令人震惊的复杂群落的家园。这一观察结果促使研究人员将个体本身视为生态系统，挑战我们以新的方式思考生态过程如何推动个人健康和体能的变化。肠道正在迅速崛起，成为这种个体内部生态系统如何与宿主生理和健康相结合的重要例子。在脊椎动物中，肠道不仅是数万亿“友好”细菌(微生物区系)的家园，这些细菌在从所消费的食物中提取营养方面起着至关重要的作用，而且还是各种寄生虫群落的家园，这些寄生虫群落与宿主争夺资源，并可能导致严重疾病。这种肠道生态系统对于我们理解野生动物种群的生态和进化动态具有巨大的潜在意义。然而，我们目前对肠道生态系统动态的驱动因素及其对自然种群寄主适合度的影响的了解非常有限。将新一代测序方法应用于粪便样本，代表了一种潜在的变革性方法，可以非侵入性地监测野生动物的肠道群落动态和饮食。这种方法已经彻底改变了我们对人类肠道细菌群落及其在健康和疾病中的作用的理解，但尚未应用于野生研究系统，在该系统中，个体的基因型、饮食、免疫和健康都受到密切监测。该项目将把这种方法应用于从经过特别充分研究的野生哺乳动物种群纵向收集的粪便样本，以同时监测肠道细菌、原生动物和线虫群落以及饮食的变化。这将使我们能够解决基本的悬而未决的问题，即哪些因素推动个人体内肠道群落的动态，以及这些动态在自然条件下对健康和健身的结果。我们的研究系统，圣基尔达的Soay绵羊，将允许我们定期和重复地对具有良好特征的遗传学、环境经验和生殖史的已知个体进行采样。我们的项目还将涉及开发和应用一种新的统计方法，将肠道群落生态的数据与我们对宿主生态和遗传学的理解相结合，以及新的生态和流行病学模型，将改变我们对肠道生态系统如何影响宿主种群和自然界疾病动态的理解。我们的项目将提供第一个综合研究，绘制肠道共生和寄生虫群落、寄主饮食、免疫和野外健康之间的关系。我们的发现将深刻地提高我们对宿主内生态系统在NERC职权范围内广泛的生态学科的重要性的理解，包括人口、社区、疾病和进化生态学。

项目成果

期刊论文数量（10）

专著数量（0）

科研奖励数量（0）

会议论文数量（0）

专利数量（0）

Synzootics

合生动物

DOI：
10.1111/1365-2656.13595
发表时间：
2021
期刊：
Journal of Animal Ecology
影响因子：
4.8
作者：
Sweeny A
通讯作者：
Sweeny A

Longitudinal dynamics of co-infecting gastrointestinal parasites in a wild sheep population.

DOI：
10.1017/s0031182021001980
发表时间：
2022-02-03
期刊：
PARASITOLOGY
影响因子：
2.4
作者：
Sweeny, Amy R.;Corripio-Miyar, Yolanda;Bal, Xavier;Hayward, Adam D.;Pilkington, Jill G.;McNeilly, Tom N.;Nussey, Daniel H.;Kenyon, Fiona
通讯作者：
Kenyon, Fiona

Functionally distinct T-helper cell phenotypes predict resistance to different types of parasites in a wild mammal

功能上不同的T辅助细胞表型预测野生哺乳动物对不同类型寄生虫的抵抗力