Environmental adaptation of host and a microbiome

By. Natalie Reyna

Results of common garden experiments, in which population growth was measured for C. elegans population isolated from mesocosms at day 100 ( final) and initial worm in present of mesocosms. Population growth is shown as offspring per worm added at the beginning of experiment. 

Microorganism when partnered up with plants and animals known to be microbiomes. Microbiomes are very important as they provide biological functions for various things such as digestion, nutrients and resistance to pathogens, and even help our immune system. With this in mind, its important to know how these microbes are able to acclimate and adapt to their changes in the environment they are associated with, typically microbes respond rapidly to these environments challenge both through genetic composition and phenotypically, however, host respond slower to a changing environment because they have longer generation time periods as compared to the microorganisms. 

Microbiome -medicated acclimate to environmental change has been documented before for multiple organisms. The model presented takes into consideration these factors disentangle the contributions of the host and microbiomes to metaorganisms adaption. Worms were harvested as well as associated microbiomes, to which were subjected to a common garden designed to unravel the impacts of microbiome composition and the host genetic adaptation. The results were that different forms of fitness occurred, being increasing and others decreased. The host and microbes play a factor in these adaptations paths.   

original article 

Petersen C, Hamerich IK, Adair KL, Griem-Krey H, Torres Oliva M, Hoeppner MP, Bohannan BJM, Schulenburg H. Host and microbiome jointly contribute to environmental adaptation. ISME J. 2023 Nov;17(11):1953-1965. doi: 10.1038/s41396-023-01507-9. Epub 2023 Sep 6. PMID: 37673969; PMCID: PMC10579302.