Collaborative Research: Linking gut microbiota to host nutrient dynamics, physiological performance, and survival in a resource-limited ecosystem
Ente: Org Interaction & Ecology
Scadenza: 2030-01-31
Importo max: 335.945 EUR
Paese: US
Descrizione
The gut microbiome is increasingly recognized as a critical regulator of nutrition, metabolism, immune function, behavior, and aging in animals and humans. However, despite major advances in lab-based animal models, scientists still know relatively little about how gut microbes influence survival and fitness in wild animals living under natural environmental conditions. This knowledge gap is especially important, given that environmental variability that reduces the availability and quality of food that can cause stress, poor health, and disease. Gut microbes may help animals cope with these challenges by converting dietary resources into essential nutrients and metabolites that support their nutrition, physiological function, and survival during periods of scarcity. This project investigates how gut microbial communities contribute to nutritional resilience and survival in banner-tailed kangaroo rats, a keystone granivorous rodent inhabiting arid ecosystems characterized by pronounced seasonal and annual variation in resource availability. By identifying the mechanisms through which gut microbes help mammals withstand nutritional stress, the project will advance understanding of host-microbe interactions and the processes that promote resilience. This research advances fundamental knowledge of mammalian physiology, ecology, and symbiosis via development of analytical tools that could be adopted by biotechnology and the biomedical sciences. The project will also support STEM workforce development through interdisciplinary training opportunities for high school, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers across three research-intensive institutions. Participants will gain hands-on experience in field ecology, molecular biology, stable isotope analysis, bioinformatics, and quantitative modeling through research, mentoring, and outreach activities.
This project seeks to establish mechanistic links among host foraging behavior, gut microbiome function, physiological performance, and survival in wild populations of banner-tailed kangaroo rats. The research will integrate stable isotope-based assessments of dietary strategies, amplicon sequencing and metatranscriptomic analyses of gut microbial communities, compound-specific isotope tracing of microbial nutrient synthesis and allocation, measures of host physiological performance, and longitudinal monitoring of survival. The project will determine how gut microbiome composition and function vary among individuals spanning a continuum from dietary specialization to generalization and whether these differences influence microbial nutrient production and assimilation by the host. Emphasis will be placed on quantifying the synthesis and host assimilation of microbiome-derived essential amino acids and short-chain fatty acids and evaluating their contribution to host bioenergetics under variable environmental conditions. Repeated measurements collected across seasons over three years will asse
Istituzione: University of California - Merced
Sede: MERCED, CA
PI: Justin Yeakel
Settori: Biological Sciences
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