Does adaptive radiation of a host lineage promote ecological diversity of its bacterial communities? A test using gut microbiota of Anolis lizards

Adaptive radiations provide unique opportunities to test whether and how recent ecological and evolutionary diversification of host species structures the composition of entire bacterial communities. We used 16S rRNA gene sequencing of faecal samples to test for differences in the gut microbiota of six species of Puerto Rican Anolis lizards characterized by the evolution of distinct ‘ecomorphs’ related to differences in habitat use. We found substantial variation in the composition of the microbiota within each species and ecomorph (trunk-crown, trunk-ground, grass-bush), but no differences in bacterial alpha diversity among species or ecomorphs. Beta diversity analyses revealed subtle but significant differences in bacterial composition related to host phylogeny and species, but these differences were not consistently associated with Anolis ecomorph. Comparison of a trunk-ground species from this clade (A. cristatellus) with a distantly related member of the same ecomorph class (A. sag...

适应辐射（Adaptive radiations）为探究宿主物种近期的生态与进化分化是否以及如何塑造整个细菌群落的组成，提供了绝佳的研究场景。本研究通过对粪便样本开展16S核糖体RNA基因测序（16S rRNA gene sequencing），针对6种以演化出与栖息地利用差异相关的独特“生态型（ecomorphs）”为特征的波多黎各安乐蜥（Anolis）的肠道微生物群（gut microbiota）差异展开了检验。研究结果显示，各物种及各类生态型（躯干-树冠型、躯干-地面型、灌丛-草地型）的微生物群组成均存在显著变异，但不同物种或生态型间的细菌α多样性（alpha diversity）并无显著差异。β多样性（beta diversity）分析表明，细菌组成存在与宿主系统发育（host phylogeny）及宿主物种相关的细微但显著的差异，但此类差异与安乐蜥生态型并无稳定关联。将该演化支中的躯干-地面型物种（A. cristatellus）与同属该生态型类群的远缘物种（A. sag...）进行比较时，