Role of the gut microbiome in winter adaptation; from fine-scaled functionality to broad-scaled macroevolutionary patterns
Päärahoittaja
Päärahoittajan myöntämä tuki (€)
- 31 000,00
Hankkeen aikataulu
Hankkeen aloituspäivämäärä: 01.01.2024
Hankkeen päättymispäivämäärä: 31.12.2024
Tiivistelmä
Winter poses a key environmental challenge to an animal’s survival. Combination of cold temperatures, limited resources, and short-day lengths present energetic and thermoregulatory challenges that can detrimentally impact fitness in wild populations living at high latitudes. By increasing metabolic rate animals can adapt to decreasing temperatures and maintain a stable body temperature, but this is energetically costly. One promising mechanism for regulating energy acquisition and heat production is the gut microbiome (GM). Members of the GM (bacteria, archaea, viruses, and microbial eukaryotes) can play a fundamental role in the hosts biology, ultimately impacting host survival. By enabling the host to adapt to rapid environmental perturbations, including cold stress, the GM may contribute to host adaptation. This project aims to test whether and how the GM contributes to avian cold tolerance with the following questions:
Q1) Does exposure to cold result in functional changes in the GM, and is this associated with temperature-induced changes in thermoregulation?
Q2) Are there generalizable temperature-related patterns between GM composition and thermal physiology across avian taxa?
This study will combine fine-scale in-depth functional analysis using a well-established avian system, with a broad-scale comparative approach, encompassing a wide avian phylogeny. This will allow us to determine if there are specific bacteria species or functional groups that are largely predictive of thermoregulatory capacities and could contribute to host winter adaptation across avian species. We address a topical challenge with novel, innovative hypotheses using cutting-edge molecular methods, not often applied to wild species. Results will increase our understanding of (a) how the GM can functionally contribute to phenotypic variation, and importantly, (b) whether host adaptation via GM may allow animals to adapt to rapidly changing environments in the face of climate change.
Q1) Does exposure to cold result in functional changes in the GM, and is this associated with temperature-induced changes in thermoregulation?
Q2) Are there generalizable temperature-related patterns between GM composition and thermal physiology across avian taxa?
This study will combine fine-scale in-depth functional analysis using a well-established avian system, with a broad-scale comparative approach, encompassing a wide avian phylogeny. This will allow us to determine if there are specific bacteria species or functional groups that are largely predictive of thermoregulatory capacities and could contribute to host winter adaptation across avian species. We address a topical challenge with novel, innovative hypotheses using cutting-edge molecular methods, not often applied to wild species. Results will increase our understanding of (a) how the GM can functionally contribute to phenotypic variation, and importantly, (b) whether host adaptation via GM may allow animals to adapt to rapidly changing environments in the face of climate change.
