Tools
ToolsLee, Chuen Zhang, Worsley, Sarah F., Davies, Charli S., Silan, Ece, Burke, Terry, Komdeur, Jan, Hildebrand, Falk, Dugdale, Hannah L. and Richardson, David S. (2025) Metagenomic analyses of gut microbiome composition and function with age in a wild bird; little change, except increased transposase gene abundance. ISME Communications, 5 (1). ISSN 2730-6151
Preview |
PDF (ycaf008)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Studies on wild animals, mostly undertaken using 16S metabarcoding, have yielded ambiguous evidence regarding changes in the gut microbiome (GM) with age and senescence. Furthermore, variation in GM function has rarely been studied in such wild populations, despite GM metabolic characteristics potentially being associated with host senescent declines. Here, we used 7 years of repeated sampling of individuals and shotgun metagenomic sequencing to investigate taxonomic and functional changes in the GM of Seychelles warblers (Acrocephalus sechellensis) with age. Our results suggest that taxonomic GM species richness declines with age and in the terminal year, with this terminal decline occurring consistently across all ages. Taxonomic and functional GM composition also shifted with host age. However, the changes we identified occurred linearly with age (or even mainly during early years prior to the onset of senescence in this species) with little evidence of accelerated change in later life or during their terminal year. Therefore, the results suggest that changes in the GM with age are not linked to senescence. Interestingly, we found a significant increase in the abundance of a group of transposase genes with age, which may accumulate passively or due to increased transposition induced as a result of stressors that arise with age. These findings reveal taxonomic and functional GM changes with age, but not senescence, in a wild vertebrate and provide a blueprint for future wild functional GM studies linked to age and senescence.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Data availability statement: All raw sequence data have been submitted to the European Nucleotide Archive database under the study accession numbers PRJEB81709. Funding information: CZL was funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (grant number BB/T008717/1). DSR and HLD were funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; grant number NE/S010939/1). SFW was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (grant number ECF-2023-433). CSD was funded by the NERC EnvEast Doctoral Training Programme (grant number NE/L002582/1). FH and ES were supported by the European Research Council H2020 StG (grant number erc-stg-948 219, EPYC). FH was also supported by BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Food Microbiome and Health (grant numbers BB/X011054/1 and BBS/E/F/000PR13631), Earlham Institute ISP Decoding Biodiversity (grant numbers BBX011089/1, BBS/E/ER/230002A, and BBS/E/ER/230002B). JK and DSR were funded by Dutch Science Council grant (ALW NWO grant number ALWOP.531), JK was funded by NWO TOP grant number 854.11.003 and NWO VICI 823.01.014 also from Dutch science council. |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Apr 2025 13:30 |
| Last Modified: | 05 May 2025 00:10 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99134 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/ismeco/ycaf008 |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |