DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Evolution of Great-Ape Gut Microbiomes

地球上几乎每一个环境都包含微生物群落，包括动物的肠道，在那里微生物越来越被认为在营养和疾病中发挥着重要作用。该项目旨在开发一种新技术，用于测量人类近亲大猩猩肠道中不同类型微生物的丰度。研究人员将结合显微镜、基因扩增和测序来量化黑猩猩、矮黑猩猩和两种大猩猩肠道内各种细菌物种的总数。这些结果将为疾病、进化史、地理和饮食如何塑造灵长类动物内部微生物群落提供新的见解。该项目的更广泛影响包括开发一种分子技术，该技术可以在医学和生物学中的微生物研究中得到广泛应用。该项目将为一名博士生和两名本科生提供研究培训。这位博士生将指导本科生，并获得教学经验，以实现建立自己的实验室的目标。

Nearly every environment on earth contains communities of microbes, including the guts of animals, where microbes are increasingly known to play a major role in nutrition and disease. This project aims to develop a new technique for measuring the abundances of the different types of microbes in the guts of the closest relatives of humans, the great apes. Researchers will combine microscopy and gene amplification and sequencing to quantify the total numbers of the various bacterial species that reside within the guts of chimpanzees, bonobos, and two species of gorillas. Results will provide new insights into how disease, evolutionary history, geography, and diet shape the internal microbial communities of primates. The broader impacts of this project include the development of a molecular technique that could find wide application in the study of microbes in medicine and biology. The project will provide research training for a doctoral student and two undergraduate students. The doctoral student will mentor the undergraduates and gain teaching experience towards his goal of starting his own lab.