Authors:

Emma Freedman

Date Created:

Not specified

Course Title:

Professor:

Not specified

About Paper:

colobus monkey Co-Author(s): Diana Christie, Nelson Ting While studies have demonstrated that social behavior plays an important role in gut microbial variation, there is limited understanding of how changes in social cohesion affect the gut microbiome. This work provides a more comprehensive examination of this relationship in a natural population of black-and-white colobus monkey (Colobus vellerosus). Adult female C. vellerosus display an increase in social interaction after the birth of an infant, presenting a known shift that I utilized to explore the association between social cohesion and the composition of the gut microbiome. Previously collected data from four social groups were used to characterize gut microbiomes via 16S rRNA sequencing and quantify changes in social cohesion. Infant presence was found to be significantly associated with gut microbial similarity (PERMANOVA: p<0. 01), and for three groups gut microbiomes became more similar with an infant present (GLMM: p<0. 036). However, there were no significant changes in social cohesion with an infant present, indicating that other social changes outside of my analyses may help explain this pattern. Future work would aim to evaluate the basis for differences in gut microbial variation between social groups and explore the presence of grooming with an infant present. Investigating the relationship between sociality and microbial variation ultimately contributes to our understanding of the factors influencing the assembly, composition, and diversity of the gut microbiome. 139 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON • 2023 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM

Source:

University of Oregon / 2023

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Emma Freedman