Gut diversity and environmental health

Donohue has studied lemurs for around a decade and her research shows a deep coevolution between the primates and gut microbes.

Microbes can evolve more quickly than the host genome which makes microbial adaptation a smart survival strategy. That’s especially important to lemurs as long-lived primates their own genetic evolution wouldn’t adapt quickly enough to a changing world.

During her master’s program she received a grant from the National Geographic Foundation that allowed her to compare the microbiome of lemurs living in disturbed forest fragments with those living in healthy continuous forests. Those living in degraded environments had reduced microbial diversity a finding that bears a strong resemblance to what has been dubbed the great extinction of the human microbiome.

Humans in hunter-gatherer societies have significantly more microbial diversity than those living in industrial environments. Diet plays a role but so do sanitation practices. Soap antibiotics and other medications can cause extinctions of gut microbes which may contribute to the development of autoimmune disease.

While Donohue also had a long-time interest in amphibians she added them to her research program in response to a different kind of microbial evolution the coronavirus pandemic. Wild lemurs are found only on Madagascar and global travel shut down during the pandemic. Having a research subject closer to home is a sensible option.

In addition to frogs in the Nature Preserve she hopes to continue her Madagascar research with a study of bamboo lemurs. These primates consume 12 to 40 times the lethal amount of cyanide daily as part of their regular diet the giant Malagasy bamboo with no ill effects.

There’s been a lot of research trying to figure out how those lemurs can thrive with this kind of diet and everyone is still scratching their head she said. Can we look at the microbiome?

Source: https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/5296/biologist-explores-the-role-of-gut-microbes-in-evolution-and-ecological-adaptation