Local adaptation of Grauer's gorilla gut microbiome

The availability of high-throughput sequencing technologies has enabled metagenomicinvestigations into complex bacterial communities with unprecedented resolution andthroughput. The production of dedicated data sets for metagenomic analyses is, however, acostly process and, frequently, the first research questions focus on the study species itself. Ifthe source material is represented by fecal samples, target capture of host-specific sequencesis applied to enrich the complex DNA mixtures contained within a typical fecal DNA extract.Yet, even after this enrichment, the samples still contain a large amount of environmentalDNA that is usually left unanalysed. In my study I investigate the possibility of using shotgunsequencing data that has been subjected to target enrichment for mtDNA from the hostspecies, Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri), for further analysis of the microbialcommunity present in these samples. The purpose of these analyses is to study the differencesin the bacterial communities present within a high-altitude Grauer’s gorilla, low-altitudeGrauer’s gorilla, and a sympatric chimpanzee population. Additionally, I explore the adaptivepotential of the gut microbiota within these great ape populations.I evaluated the impact that the enrichment process had on the microbial community by usingpre- and post-capture museum preserved samples. In addition to this, I also analysed the effectof two different extraction methods on the bacterial communities.My results show that the relative abundances of the bacterial taxa remain relatively unaffectedby the enrichment process and the extraction methods. The overall number of taxa is,however, reduced by each additional capture round and is not consistent between theextraction methods. This means that both the enrichment and extraction processes introducebiases that require the usage of abundance-based distance measures for biological inferences.Additionally, even if the data cannot be used to study the bacterial communities in anunbiased manner, it provides useful comparative insights for samples that were treated in thesame fashion.With this background, I used museum and fecal samples to perform cluster analysis to explorethe relationships between the gut microbiota of the three great ape populations. I found thatpopulations cluster by species first, and only then group according to habitat. I further foundthat a bacterial taxon that degrades plant matter is enriched in the gut microbiota of all threegreat ape species, where it could help with the digestion of vegetative foods. Another bacterialtaxon that consumes glucose is enriched in the gut microbiota of the low-altitude gorilla andchimpanzee populations, where it could help with the modulation of the host’s mucosalimmune system, and could point to the availability of fruit in the animals diet. In addition, Ifound a bacterial taxon that is linked with diarrhea in humans to be part of the gut microbiotaof the habituated high-altitude gorilla population, which could indicate that this pathogen hasbeen transmitted to the gorillas from their interaction with humans, or it could be indicative ofthe presence of a contaminated water source