ArticleScientific reports2021
The meta-gut: community coalescence of animal gut and environmental microbiomes.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Microbiome dynamics in the congregate environment of U.S. Army Infantry training.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Cattle manure suppresses methane consumption and enhances denitrification-associated nitrous oxide production in farm dams.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Accuracy of the Lotka-Volterra model fails in strongly coupled microbial consumer-resource systems.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Range-Wide Assessment of the Tasmanian Devil Gut Microbiome.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Interplay of ecological processes modulates microbial community reassembly following coalescence.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Insights into the biotic factors driving the outcome of coalescence events between soil bacterial communities.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Unraveling the gut microbiota of Mexican pinnipeds: the dominance of life histories over phylogeny.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Drivers and consequences of microbial community coalescence.The ISME journal · 2024Review
- The ecology of scale: impact of volume on coalescence and function in methanogenic communities.Interface focus · 2023Article
- Wildlife gut microbiomes of sympatric generalist species respond differently to anthropogenic landscape disturbances.Animal microbiome · 2023Article
- Chewing, dentition and tooth wear in Hippopotamidae (Hippopotamus amphibius and Choeropsis liberiensis).PloS one · 2023Article
- Ecological and Evolutionary Implications of Microbial Dispersal.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Review
- The meta-gut: community coalescence of animal gut and environmental microbiomes.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
All animals carry specialized microbiomes, and their gut microbiota are continuously released into the environment through excretion of waste. Here we propose the meta-gut as a novel conceptual framework that addresses the ability of the gut microbiome released from an animal to function outside the host and alter biogeochemical processes mediated by microbes. We demonstrate this dynamic in the hippopotamus (hippo) and the pools they inhabit. We used natural field gradients and experimental approaches to examine fecal and pool water microbial communities and aquatic biogeochemistry across a range of hippo inputs. Sequencing using 16S RNA methods revealed community coalescence between hippo gut microbiomes and the active microbial communities in hippo pools that received high inputs of hippo feces. The shared microbiome between the hippo gut and the waters into which they excrete constitutes a meta-gut system that could influence the biogeochemistry of recipient ecosystems and provide a reservoir of gut microbiomes that could influence other hosts. We propose that meta-gut dynamics may also occur where other animal species congregate in high densities, particularly in aquatic environments.
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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.