How is the gut microbiome community assembled in wild rodents?

细菌肠道菌群对宿主的生物学有着深远的影响。但是，这种微生物群是如何组装和维持的，以及其组成变化的动态，是未知的。许多因素可能会影响微生物群的聚集——动物的饮食、免疫反应，以及个体暴露在环境中的细菌，其中包括与之相互作用的其他个体的细菌。但是，这些不同因素的相对作用是未知的。本项目的目的是研究饮食、免疫反应和细菌暴露在野生啮齿动物肠道菌群聚集和维持中的相对重要性。这项工作将结合实地观察研究和控制实验，其中与微生物组组装有关的各种因素将被操纵。肠道微生物组具有巨大的重要性和研究努力，但迄今为止，这几乎只在实验室啮齿动物中进行了研究。实验室啮齿类动物的微生物群落多样性不如野生动物。此外，实验动物的微生物组是人造的——例如，哪家公司提供这些动物，在哪个实验室饲养它们，这些都是影响它们微生物组组成的主要因素。本项目的新颖之处在于(i)我们将研究野生啮齿动物微生物组的组成、组装和动态，（ii）考虑不同因素在控制其组装中的相对作用。这种多因素的方法以前没有使用过，这有助于项目的新颖性。这项工作是及时的，因为通过研究野生系统，它将有助于验证（或不验证）实验室动物的微生物组研究，这是迫切需要的。这项工作也很及时，建立在Viney和Pocock最近对野生小鼠免疫功能和微生物组的研究基础上，这进一步补充了Hurst在野生啮齿动物系统方面的专业知识。

The bacterial gut microbiome has a profound impact on the biology of its host. But, how this microbiome is assembled and maintained, and the dynamics of changes in its composition, is unknown. Many factors may affect the microbiome's assembly - an animal's diet, its immune responses, and the bacteria an individual is exposed to its environment, which includes bacteria from other individuals with whom it interacts. But, the relative roles of these different factors is unknown.The aim of this project is to investigate the relative importance of diet, immune responses, and bacterial exposure in assembling and maintaining the bacterial gut microbiome in wild rodents. The work will use a combination of field observation studies and controlled experiments where various factors pertaining to microbiome assembly will be manipulatedThe gut microbiome is of enormous importance and research effort but, to date, this has almost exclusively been studied in laboratory rodents. Laboratory rodents have less diverse microbiomes than wild animals. Also, laboratory animals' microbiomes are artefactual - for example, which company has supplied the animals, and in which laboratories they are kept, are dominant factors affecting their microbiome's composition. The novelty of this proposed project is that (i) we will study the composition, assembly and dynamics of the microbiome of wild rodents and (ii) consider the relative role of different factors in controlling its assembly. This multifactorial approach has not been used before, which contributes to the project's novelty.This work is timely because by studying wild systems it will contribute to validating (or not) microbiome research in laboratory animals, for which there is a pressing need. The work is also timely, building on Viney and Pocock's recent work on the immune function and microbiome of wild mice, which is further complemented by Hurst's expertise in wild rodent systems.