ArticleScientific reports2020
Diet induces parallel changes to the gut microbiota and problem solving performance in a wild bird.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
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Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ectoparasitism and the gut microbiota: a cross-fostering experiment in a wild passerine.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Disentangling host identity and storage time effects on gut microbiota composition in captive migratory birds using absolute and relative quantification.Current zoology · 2026Article
- The elephant (bird) in the room: unknown mechanisms and unresolved impacts of low DNA yields in avian microbiome research.Animal microbiome · 2026Article
- Comparative Analysis of Gut Microbiota Among Captive Waterbird Species: Effects of Diet and Environmental Factors.Veterinary medicine and science · 2026Article
- Gut Microbiota of Captive and Wild Siberian Cranes and Links to Soil in Poyang Lake Wetlands.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Temporal dynamics of the fecal microbiome in wintering seagulls: a One Health perspective.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Gut Microbiome Variations in Herring Gulls (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Migration-driven microbial adaptation and ecological spillover in birds.ISME communications · 2026Review
- Article
- Analysis of Gut Microbial Communities and Functions inMicroorganisms · 2025Article
- Intestinal microbiome diversity and disparity between wild and captive endangered Asian elephants (Elephas maximus indicus) in southern India.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2025Article
- Host Diet Preference Drives Diversity and Composition of Gut Microbiota in Captive Birds.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- An Early-Life Disruption of Gut Microbiota Has Opposing Effects on Parasite Resistance in Two Host Species.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Differences in Intestinal Microbiota Between White and Common Cranes in the Yellow River Delta During Winter.Biology · 2025Article
- Host-Microbiome Associations of Native and Invasive Small Mammals Across a Tropical Urban-Rural Ecotone.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Exploring Bird Gut Microbiota Through Opportunistic Fecal Sampling: Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Uropygial gland microbiota of nearctic-neotropical migrants vary with season and migration distance.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- Faecal metagenomes of great tits and blue tits provide insights into host, diet, pathogens and microbial biodiversity.Access microbiology · 2025Article
- Assessing accuracy and specificity of faecal source library for microbial source-tracking, using SourceTracker as case study.Bioinformatics advances · 2025Article
- Adaptive characteristics of the gut microbiota of the scaly-sided merganser (Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The microbial community in the gut is influenced by environmental factors, especially diet, which can moderate host behaviour through the microbiome-gut-brain axis. However, the ecological relevance of microbiome-mediated behavioural plasticity in wild animals is unknown. We presented wild-caught great tits (Parus major) with a problem-solving task and showed that performance was weakly associated with variation in the gut microbiome. We then manipulated the gut microbiome by feeding birds one of two diets that differed in their relative levels of fat, protein and fibre content: an insect diet (low content), or a seed diet (high content). Microbial communities were less diverse among individuals given the insect compared to those on the seed diet. Individuals were less likely to problem-solve after being given the insect diet, and the same microbiota metrics that were altered as a consequence of diet were also those that correlated with variation in problem solving performance. Although the effect on problem-solving behaviour could have been caused by motivational or nutritional differences between our treatments, our results nevertheless raise the possibility that dietary induced changes in the gut microbiota could be an important mechanism underlying individual behavioural plasticity in wild populations.
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