title: The gut microbiota of rural papua new guineans: composition, diversity patterns, and ecological processes.
abstract: Although recent research revealed an impact of westernization on diversity and composition of the human gut microbiota, the exact consequences on metacommunity characteristics are insufficiently understood, and the underlying ecological mechanisms have not been elucidated. Here, we have compared the fecal microbiota of adults from two non-industrialized regions in Papua New Guinea (PNG) with that of United States (US) residents. Papua New Guineans harbor communities with greater bacterial diversity, lower inter-individual variation, vastly different abundance profiles, and bacterial lineages undetectable in US residents. A quantification of the ecological processes that govern community assembly identified bacterial dispersal as the dominant process that shapes the microbiome in PNG but not in the US. These findings suggest that the microbiome alterations detected in industrialized societies might arise from modern lifestyle factors limiting bacterial dispersal, which has implications for human health and the development of strategies aimed to redress the impact of westernization.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Food, and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E1, Canada; Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA.
authors.forename: Inés
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Martínez
authors.affiliation: Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Stegen
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA.
authors.forename: Maria X
authors.initials: MX
authors.lastname: Maldonado-Gómez
authors.affiliation: Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
authors.forename: A Murat
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Eren
authors.affiliation: Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province 441, Papua New Guinea.
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Siba
authors.affiliation: Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province 441, Papua New Guinea; School of Applied and Biomedical Sciences, Federation University Australia, Churchill, VIC 3842, Australia. Electronic address: andrew.greenhill@federation.edu.au.
authors.forename: Andrew R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Greenhill
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Food, and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E1, Canada; Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E1, Canada. Electronic address: jwalter1@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Walter
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D000069196:Gastrointestinal Microbiome / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010219:Papua New Guinea; D012424:Rural Population