title: Dietary input of microbes and host genetic variation shape among-population differences in stickleback gut microbiota.
abstract: To explain differences in gut microbial communities we must determine how processes regulating microbial community assembly (colonization, persistence) differ among hosts and affect microbiota composition. We surveyed the gut microbiota of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) from 10 geographically clustered populations and sequenced environmental samples to track potential colonizing microbes and quantify the effects of host environment and genotype. Gut microbiota composition and diversity varied among populations. These among-population differences were associated with multiple covarying ecological variables: habitat type (lake, stream, estuary), lake geomorphology and food- (but not water-) associated microbiota. Fish genotype also covaried with gut microbiota composition; more genetically divergent populations exhibited more divergent gut microbiota. Our results suggest that population level differences in stickleback gut microbiota may depend more on internal sorting processes (host genotype) than on colonization processes (transient environmental effects).
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, One University Station C0990, Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Chris C R
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, One University Station C0990, Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Snowberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA.|Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gregory Caporaso
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0975-9019
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Knight
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute & Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, One University Station C0990, Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Bolnick
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001955:British Columbia; D004032:Diet; D063366:Estuaries; D000069196:Gastrointestinal Microbiome; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D005838:Genotype; D005843:Geography; D007422:Intestines / Q000382:microbiology*; D060106:Lakes; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D045483:Rivers; D023701:Smegmamorpha / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology*; D014871:Water Microbiology
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S