Microbial solutions to dietary stress: Experimental evolution reveals host-microbiome interplay in Drosophila melanogaster

Can the microbiome serve as a reservoir of adaptive potential for hosts? To address this question, we leveraged ~150 generations of experimental evolution in Drosophila melanogaster in a stressful, high-sugar (HS) diet. We performed a fully reciprocal transplant experiment using the control and HS bacteria. If the microbiome confers benefits to hosts, then transplant recipients should gain fitness benefits compared to controls. Interestingly, we found that such benefits exist, but their magnitude depends on evolutionary history—mismatches between fly evolution and microbiome reduced fecundity and potentially exerted fitness costs, especially in the stressful HS diet. The dominant HS bacteria (​​Acetobacter pasteurianus) uniquely encoded several genes to enable uric acid degradation, mediating the toxic effects of uric acid accumulation due to the HS diet for flies. Our study demonstrates that host genotype x microbiome x environment interactions have substantial effects on host phenotyp..., , , # Data from: Microbial solutions to dietary stress: Experimental evolution reveals host-microbiome interplay in Drosophila melanogaster

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0vt4b8h7z](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0vt4b8h7z)

## Description of the data and file structure

data was collected following ~150 generations of adaptation to HS diet selection 

fully reciprocal host x microbiome x diet transplant 

### Files and variables

#### File: acetos\_uricacid\_210713b.csv

**Description:** uric acid degradation by C or HS Acetobacter on fly food 

##### Variables

* sample: sample ID
* abs: absorbance value 
* um.ua: conversion to micromolar uric acid 
* treatment: full treatment code (diet x uric acid x microbe)
* diet: C or HS diet 
* ua: how much uric acid added (0 or 200)
* microbe: sterile, C Aceto, or HS Aceto 

#### File: 2536\_aceto\_ovidata.csv

**Description:** egg lay data for recipients of microbiome transplant 

##### Variables

* plate.no: egg lay plate number 
* date: date of ...