Contribution of neutral processes to the assembly of gut microbial communities in the zebrafish over host development

Despite their importance to host health and development, the communities of microorganisms associated with humans and other animals are characterized by a large degree of unexplained variation across individual hosts. The processes that drive such inter-individual variation are not well understood. To address this, we surveyed the microbial communities associated with the intestine of the zebrafish, Danio rerio, over developmental time. We compared our observations of community composition and distribution across hosts with that predicted by a neutral assembly model, which assumes that community assembly is driven solely by chance and dispersal. We found that as hosts develop from larvae to adults, the fit of…

• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: 1P50GM098911
• UO
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• NI
  National Institute of General Medical Sciences

  Awards: 1R01GM095385, 1P50GM098911