Investigating short-term dynamics of gut microbiome composition in the Western deer mouse

Clicks: 3
ID: 319990
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #71 of 115 articles by views in integrative and comparative biology

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
The gut microbiome plays an important role in mammalian host health and ability to adapt to environmental conditions. While the gut microbiome is often considered fairly stable over short periods of time in the absence of a dramatic stressor, relatively little is known about the actual time scale of microbiome shifts, particularly in wildlife species. Most existing temporal studies utilize captive subjects, while here we employ the Western deer mouse, Peromyscus sonoriensis, in a field-based study to assess short-term microbiome dynamics (less than two days) in the wild. Mice were live-trapped at several urban and rural parks over a two-night trapping period in and around Spokane, Washington, USA in May of 2024. We collected fecal samples from 43 different individuals, capturing two to four time points per individual, and bacterial community composition was determined via 16S profiling with Nanopore sequencing. Genus-level profiles were compared across time points for each individual, showing relative consistency in types of taxa present for most mice, but some marked shifts in Ligilactobacillus in some mice. Calculation of intraclass correlation coefficients, however, showed low stability in alpha diversity (Shannon index) over time, suggesting greater variability than initially anticipated. Analysis with respect to site urbanization, sex, and age showed a significant effect of age when accounting for homogeneity of variance, with additional exploration of urbanization and sex needed in future work. These results provide important insight into the understudied area of host microbiome dynamics and highlight the complex relationships between microbiome, health, and environment.
Reference Key
openalex_W7167729879 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors June LePage, Hunter Wetherelt, E Addis, Laurie Dizney, Ashley E. Beck
Journal integrative and comparative biology
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/icb/icag094
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icag094
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.