野生金丝猴肠道微生物对环境适应性的研究

动物对食物的适应是其对环境适应的关键。食叶灵长类依靠消化道微生物群落的发酵，来协助它们适应叶食性的环境。虽然食叶灵长类食物种类复杂，但是动物的营养成分摄入却呈动态的稳定性。尽管我们已经发现食叶灵长类肠道微生物群落在长期进化中对宿主摄入的营养物质有了适应，可以发酵降解食入的纤维，但是对于肠道微生物如何应对养分摄入的波动的机制并不清楚。而野生动物研究和保护实践中，我们已经发现金丝猴经常面临如季节性、环境变迁时养分摄入波动的冲击，但对肠道微生物应答的机制并仍清楚。为此，我们在营养定量研究的基础上，拟通过对野生金丝猴粪便样本动态收集和宏基因组测序分析，掌握肠道微生物群落组成、结构与功能的动态变化规律；通过对野生金丝猴对三大营养成分的摄入比例的调节，研究肠道微生物的应答关系，进而揭示动物肠道微生物适应宿主食物波动的机制，回答食叶灵长类动物肠道微生物如何适应宿主环境食物波动这一重要的理论和实践问题。

An ability to adapt to spatial and temporal dietary variation is important for allowing animals to survive in their natural environments. For instance, folivorous primates rely on fermentation by a specialist gut microbiota in order to digest plant foodstuffs that vary in their availability to hosts in space and time. Although there are many dietary adaptations that operate via multiple complex mechanisms, each folivorous primate species must have evolved a stable but dynamic process of extracting nutrient components from a variable plant-based diet. However, although the gut microbial communities of folivorous primates have evolved to process the multiple nutrients ingested by their hosts, it remains unclear how these gut microbiomes respond to variation in nutrient intake according to temporal and spatial variation in host foodstuff consumption. Such an understanding is, however, important for primate conservation, particularly in recognizing the fluctuations of nutrient intakes following environmental changes. We will use metagenomic analysis of faecal samples collected from different wild golden snub-nosed monkey populations in the Qinling Mountains, samples that will also capture seasonal dietary variation. This project will use qualitative analytical tools to measure the dynamic changes and functions of the gut microbiome community structure. We will also measure the responding gene profiles of the gut microbiomes through seasonal changes to the proportions of the three major dietary macronutrients ingested by the monkeys, fats, proteins and carbohydrates. By determining gene function, we will build a mechanistic picture of how these gut microbiomes adapt to temporal variation in the nutrients ingested by their hosts. This project will thus show how essential gut microflora are likely to react to predicted changes in spatial and temporal variation in the diets of their endangered, endemic monkey hosts changes caused by factors such as deforestation and climate change.