Evolution of mammals and their gut microbes
Open accessAbstract
Mammals are metagenomic in that they are composed of not only their own gene complements but also those of all of their associated microbes. To understand the coevolution of the mammals and their indigenous microbial communities, we conducted a network-based analysis of bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences from the fecal microbiota of humans and 59 other mammalian species living in two zoos and in the wild. The results indicate that host diet and phylogeny both influence bacterial diversity, which increases from carnivory to omnivory to herbivory; that bacterial communities codiversified with their hosts; and that the gut microbiota of humans living a modern life-style is typical of omnivorous primates.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Humans cluster more closely with other primates than with non-primates in intestinal microbiota composition.
“A comparison of the intestinal microbiota between different primates and mammals found that humans clustered more closely with other primates than non-primates.”
From Diet and the Intestinal Microbiome: Associations, Functions, and Implications for Health and Disease (2014) · cites this paper as [28]
Diet was the most important determinant of the similarity of human microbiota samples to samples from omnivorous primate species.
“diet was the most important determinant where human microbiota samples were most similar to samples from omnivorous primate species28.”
From Diet and the Intestinal Microbiome: Associations, Functions, and Implications for Health and Disease (2014) · cites this paper as [28]
Diet modulates the composition and function of the gut microbiota in humans and other mammals.
“diet modulates the composition and function of this community of microbes in humans and other mammals18–25”
From Diet–microbiota interactions as moderators of human metabolism (2016) · cites this paper as [24]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 30 · Cited by 3,747
- Authors
- Ley, R. E., Hamady, M., Lozupone, C., Turnbaugh, P. J., Ramey, R. R., Bircher, J. S., Schlegel, M. L., Tucker, T. A., Schrenzel, M. D., Knight, R., & Gordon, J. I.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gordon, Jeffrey I.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2008-06-20
- Volume
- 320
- Issue
- 5883
- Pages
- 1647-1651
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- PMC
- PMC2649005
- OpenAlex
- W2144568881
- Cited by
- 3,747
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 113 · 2025: 167 · 2024: 240 · 2023: 221 · 2022: 249 · 2021: 318 · 2020: 271 · 2019: 279 · 2018: 275 · 2017: 237 · 2016: 208 · 2015: 194 · 2014: 218 · 2013: 193 · 2012: 175
- FWCI
- 52.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Funders
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM065103, T32GM008759, T32GM142607)
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK-30292, P01DK078669, DK78669, DK 70977, R01DK070977, R01DK030292)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Keywords
- 16S rRNA gene sequences, bacterial diversity, co-diversification, human gut microbiome, primates, metagenomics
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Physiological, Animals, Animals, Wild, Animals, Zoo, Bacteria, Carnivora, Diet, Biological Evolution, Feces, Humans, Mammals, Molecular Sequence Data, Phylogeny, Primates, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S, Bacterial Physiological Phenomena, Genes, rRNA, Gastrointestinal Tract
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
