IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v12y2021i1d10.1038_s41467-021-26298-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diurnal oscillations in gut bacterial load and composition eclipse seasonal and lifetime dynamics in wild meerkats

Author

Listed:
  • Alice Risely

    (Institute for Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics)

  • Kerstin Wilhelm

    (Institute for Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics)

  • Tim Clutton-Brock

    (University of Cambridge
    University of Pretoria, Mammal Research Institute
    Kalahari Research Trust, Kuruman River Reserve)

  • Marta B. Manser

    (University of Pretoria, Mammal Research Institute
    Kalahari Research Trust, Kuruman River Reserve
    University of Zurich)

  • Simone Sommer

    (Institute for Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics)

Abstract

Circadian rhythms in gut microbiota composition are crucial for metabolic function, yet the extent to which they govern microbial dynamics compared to seasonal and lifetime processes remains unknown. Here, we investigate gut bacterial dynamics in wild meerkats (Suricata suricatta) over a 20-year period to compare diurnal, seasonal, and lifetime processes in concert, applying ratios of absolute abundance. We found that diurnal oscillations in bacterial load and composition eclipsed seasonal and lifetime dynamics. Diurnal oscillations were characterised by a peak in Clostridium abundance at dawn, were associated with temperature-constrained foraging schedules, and did not decay with age. Some genera exhibited seasonal fluctuations, whilst others developed with age, although we found little support for microbial senescence in very old meerkats. Strong microbial circadian rhythms in this species may reflect the extreme daily temperature fluctuations typical of arid-zone climates. Our findings demonstrate that accounting for circadian rhythms is essential for future gut microbiome research.

Suggested Citation

  • Alice Risely & Kerstin Wilhelm & Tim Clutton-Brock & Marta B. Manser & Simone Sommer, 2021. "Diurnal oscillations in gut bacterial load and composition eclipse seasonal and lifetime dynamics in wild meerkats," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-26298-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26298-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26298-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-021-26298-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence A. David & Corinne F. Maurice & Rachel N. Carmody & David B. Gootenberg & Julie E. Button & Benjamin E. Wolfe & Alisha V. Ling & A. Sloan Devlin & Yug Varma & Michael A. Fischbach & Sudha B. , 2014. "Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome," Nature, Nature, vol. 505(7484), pages 559-563, January.
    2. Koji Atarashi & Takeshi Tanoue & Kenshiro Oshima & Wataru Suda & Yuji Nagano & Hiroyoshi Nishikawa & Shinji Fukuda & Takuro Saito & Seiko Narushima & Koji Hase & Sangwan Kim & Joëlle V. Fritz & Paul W, 2013. "Treg induction by a rationally selected mixture of Clostridia strains from the human microbiota," Nature, Nature, vol. 500(7461), pages 232-236, August.
    3. Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve, 2015. "Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i01).
    4. Dylan Dodd & Matthew H. Spitzer & William Van Treuren & Bryan D. Merrill & Andrew J. Hryckowian & Steven K. Higginbottom & Anthony Le & Tina M. Cowan & Garry P. Nolan & Michael A. Fischbach & Justin L, 2017. "A gut bacterial pathway metabolizes aromatic amino acids into nine circulating metabolites," Nature, Nature, vol. 551(7682), pages 648-652, November.
    5. Christopher J. Stewart & Nadim J. Ajami & Jacqueline L. O’Brien & Diane S. Hutchinson & Daniel P. Smith & Matthew C. Wong & Matthew C. Ross & Richard E. Lloyd & HarshaVardhan Doddapaneni & Ginger A. M, 2018. "Temporal development of the gut microbiome in early childhood from the TEDDY study," Nature, Nature, vol. 562(7728), pages 583-588, October.
    6. Jonas Schluter & Jonathan U. Peled & Bradford P. Taylor & Kate A. Markey & Melody Smith & Ying Taur & Rene Niehus & Anna Staffas & Anqi Dai & Emily Fontana & Luigi A. Amoretti & Roberta J. Wright & Se, 2020. "The gut microbiota is associated with immune cell dynamics in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 588(7837), pages 303-307, December.
    7. Nhan T. Ho & Fan Li & Kathleen A. Lee-Sarwar & Hein M. Tun & Bryan P. Brown & Pia S. Pannaraj & Jeffrey M. Bender & Meghan B. Azad & Amanda L. Thompson & Scott T. Weiss & M. Andrea Azcarate-Peril & Au, 2018. "Meta-analysis of effects of exclusive breastfeeding on infant gut microbiota across populations," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-13, December.
    8. Verónica Lloréns-Rico & Sara Vieira-Silva & Pedro J. Gonçalves & Gwen Falony & Jeroen Raes, 2021. "Benchmarking microbiome transformations favors experimental quantitative approaches to address compositionality and sampling depth biases," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yue Clare Lou & Benjamin E. Rubin & Marie C. Schoelmerich & Kaden S. DiMarco & Adair L. Borges & Rachel Rovinsky & Leo Song & Jennifer A. Doudna & Jillian F. Banfield, 2023. "Infant microbiome cultivation and metagenomic analysis reveal Bifidobacterium 2’-fucosyllactose utilization can be facilitated by coexisting species," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Nguyen T. Van & Karen Zhang & Rachel M. Wigmore & Anne I. Kennedy & Carolina R. DaSilva & Jialing Huang & Manju Ambelil & Jose H. Villagomez & Gerald J. O’Connor & Randy S. Longman & Miao Cao & Adam E, 2023. "Dietary L-Tryptophan consumption determines the number of colonic regulatory T cells and susceptibility to colitis via GPR15," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Doris Vandeputte & Lindsey Commer & Raul Y. Tito & Gunter Kathagen & João Sabino & Séverine Vermeire & Karoline Faust & Jeroen Raes, 2021. "Temporal variability in quantitative human gut microbiome profiles and implications for clinical research," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, December.
    4. JANSSENS, Jochen & DE CORTE, Annelies & SÖRENSEN, Kenneth, 2016. "Water distribution network design optimisation with respect to reliability," Working Papers 2016007, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    5. Raymond Hernandez & Elizabeth A. Pyatak & Cheryl L. P. Vigen & Haomiao Jin & Stefan Schneider & Donna Spruijt-Metz & Shawn C. Roll, 2021. "Understanding Worker Well-Being Relative to High-Workload and Recovery Activities across a Whole Day: Pilot Testing an Ecological Momentary Assessment Technique," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-17, October.
    6. Christopher Hassall & Michael Nisbet & Evan Norcliffe & He Wang, 2024. "The Potential Health Benefits of Urban Tree Planting Suggested through Immersive Environments," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-12, February.
    7. Jie Zhao & Ji Chen & Damien Beillouin & Hans Lambers & Yadong Yang & Pete Smith & Zhaohai Zeng & Jørgen E. Olesen & Huadong Zang, 2022. "Global systematic review with meta-analysis reveals yield advantage of legume-based rotations and its drivers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    8. Elisabeth Beckmann & Lukas Olbrich & Joseph Sakshaug, 2024. "Multivariate assessment of interviewer-related errors in a cross-national economic survey (Lukas Olbrich, Elisabeth Beckmann, Joseph W. Sakshaug)," Working Papers 253, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    9. F J Heather & D Z Childs & A M Darnaude & J L Blanchard, 2018. "Using an integral projection model to assess the effect of temperature on the growth of gilthead seabream Sparus aurata," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, May.
    10. Valentina Krenz & Arjen Alink & Tobias Sommer & Benno Roozendaal & Lars Schwabe, 2023. "Time-dependent memory transformation in hippocampus and neocortex is semantic in nature," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-17, December.
    11. Ruairi C. Robertson & Thaddeus J. Edens & Lynnea Carr & Kuda Mutasa & Ethan K. Gough & Ceri Evans & Hyun Min Geum & Iman Baharmand & Sandeep K. Gill & Robert Ntozini & Laura E. Smith & Bernard Chasekw, 2023. "The gut microbiome and early-life growth in a population with high prevalence of stunting," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Morán-Ordóñez, Alejandra & Ameztegui, Aitor & De Cáceres, Miquel & de-Miguel, Sergio & Lefèvre, François & Brotons, Lluís & Coll, Lluís, 2020. "Future trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services in Mediterranean forests under global change scenarios," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    13. Jack McDonnell & Thomas McKenna & Kathryn A. Yurkonis & Deirdre Hennessy & Rafael Andrade Moral & Caroline Brophy, 2023. "A Mixed Model for Assessing the Effect of Numerous Plant Species Interactions on Grassland Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function Relationships," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 28(1), pages 1-19, March.
    14. Ana Pinto & Tong Yin & Marion Reichenbach & Raghavendra Bhatta & Pradeep Kumar Malik & Eva Schlecht & Sven König, 2020. "Enteric Methane Emissions of Dairy Cattle Considering Breed Composition, Pasture Management, Housing Conditions and Feeding Characteristics along a Rural-Urban Gradient in a Rising Megacity," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-18, December.
    15. Damian M. Herz & Manuel Bange & Gabriel Gonzalez-Escamilla & Miriam Auer & Keyoumars Ashkan & Petra Fischer & Huiling Tan & Rafal Bogacz & Muthuraman Muthuraman & Sergiu Groppa & Peter Brown, 2022. "Dynamic control of decision and movement speed in the human basal ganglia," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    16. Kathrin Stenchly & Marc Victor Hansen & Katharina Stein & Andreas Buerkert & Wilhelm Loewenstein, 2018. "Income Vulnerability of West African Farming Households to Losses in Pollination Services: A Case Study from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-12, November.
    17. Dongyan Liu & Chongran Zhou & John K. Keesing & Oscar Serrano & Axel Werner & Yin Fang & Yingjun Chen & Pere Masque & Janine Kinloch & Aleksey Sadekov & Yan Du, 2022. "Wildfires enhance phytoplankton production in tropical oceans," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    18. Zhaogeng Yang & Yanhui Li & Peijin Hu & Jun Ma & Yi Song, 2020. "Prevalence of Anemia and its Associated Factors among Chinese 9-, 12-, and 14-Year-Old Children: Results from 2014 Chinese National Survey on Students Constitution and Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-10, February.
    19. Marco Lopez-Cruz & Fernando M. Aguate & Jacob D. Washburn & Natalia Leon & Shawn M. Kaeppler & Dayane Cristina Lima & Ruijuan Tan & Addie Thompson & Laurence Willard Bretonne & Gustavo los Campos, 2023. "Leveraging data from the Genomes-to-Fields Initiative to investigate genotype-by-environment interactions in maize in North America," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    20. Baumann, Elias & Kern, Jana & Lessmann, Stefan, 2019. "Usage Continuance in Software-as-a-Service," IRTG 1792 Discussion Papers 2019-005, Humboldt University of Berlin, International Research Training Group 1792 "High Dimensional Nonstationary Time Series".

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-26298-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.