ArticlemSystems
Is Host Filtering the Main Driver of Phylosymbiosis across the Tree of Life?
Article in mSystems. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 101 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
101 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 212 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional Equivalence and Conserved Sexual Dimorphism in the Gut Microbiome: A Cross-Species Meta-analysis.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Pooled it
- Taxonomy, tissue, and habitat influence mollusk microbial communities.The ISME journal · 2026Pooled it
- Host and Environment Shape the Giant Clam-Associated Photosymbiont Community.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Host-Associated Differentiation of Gut Microbiota Among Four Crane Species Wintering in Rice Paddies Around Poyang Lake.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Species-Specific Bacterial Associations Emerge From Stochastically Assembled Microbiomes in Northeastern American Fireflies.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Environmental microbial communities and host selection shape larval microbiomes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Towards Key Principles of Host-Associated Microbiome Assembly.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- The Dairy Ruminant Gut Microbiome: Profile, Responsiveness to Seasonality and Impact on Milk Quality.Environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- A Comparative Survey of Soldier Fly (Stratiomyidae) Larval Gut Microbiomes Across Five Subfamilies Reveals Novel Bacterial Diversity and a "Wild Core" in Hermetia illucens.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Evidences That Host Genetic Background More Than the Environment Shapes the Microbiota of the Snail Bulinus truncatus, an Intermediate Host of Schistosoma Species.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Bacterial Communities Associated With Crustose Coralline Algae Are Host-Specific.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Article
- Host and microbial factors influence bacterial colonization of the honey bee gut.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Ephemeral signatures of phylosymbiosis in dermal microbiomes within the requiem shark family (Carcharhinidae).Access microbiology · 2026Article
- Phylogenetic influence on gut microbiome diversity within an African herbivore community.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Host Evolutionary History Drives Prokaryotic Diversity in the Globally Distributed Sponge Family Petrosiidae.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- A unified catalog of 14,062 microbial species reference genomes provides new insight into the gut microbiota in high-altitude mammals.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Experimental Immigration Mediates Ecological Selection and Drift in Monarch Microbiome Assembly.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Evolution of gut microbiota across honeybee species revealed by comparative metagenomics.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Host-Specificity and Network Structure of Tick Microbiota in Co-Distributed Species From the Iberian Peninsula.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Host specificity of gut microbiota associated with social bees: patterns and processes.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2025Review
41 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Host-associated microbiota composition can be conserved over evolutionary time scales. Indeed, closely related species often host similar microbiota; i.e., the composition of their microbiota harbors a phylogenetic signal, a pattern sometimes referred to as "phylosymbiosis." Elucidating the origins of this pattern is important to better understand microbiota ecology and evolution. However, this is hampered by our lack of theoretical expectations and a comprehensive overview of phylosymbiosis prevalence in nature. Here, we use simulations to provide a simple expectation for when we should expect this pattern to occur and then review the literature to document the prevalence and strength of phylosymbiosis across the host tree of life. We demonstrate that phylosymbiosis can readily emerge from a simple ecological filtering process, whereby a given host trait (e.g., gut pH) that varies with host phylogeny (i.e., harbors a phylogenetic signal) filters preadapted microbes. We found marked differences between methods used to detect phylosymbiosis, so we proposed a series of practical recommendations based on using multiple best-performing approaches. Importantly, we found that, while the prevalence of phylosymbiosis is mixed in nature, it appears to be stronger for microbiotas living in internal host compartments (e.g., the gut) than those living in external compartments (e.g., the rhizosphere). We show that phylosymbiosis can theoretically emerge without any intimate, long-term coevolutionary mechanisms and that most phylosymbiosis patterns observed in nature are compatible with a simple ecological process. Deviations from baseline ecological expectations might be used to further explore more complex hypotheses, such as codiversification.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.