Humanization of wildlife gut microbiota in urban environments

Urbanization is rapidly altering Earth’s environments, demanding
investigations of the impacts on resident wildlife. Here, we show that
urban populations of coyotes (Canis latrans) and crested anole lizards
(Anolis cristatellus) acquire gut microbiota constituents found in humans,
including the gut bacterial lineages most significantly associated with
urbanization in humans (e.g., Bacteroides). Comparisons of urban and rural
wildlife and human populations revealed significant convergence of the gut
microbiota among urban host populations. Remarkably, all microbial
lineages found in humans that were overrepresented in urban wildlife
relative to rural wildlife were also overrepresented in urban humans
relative to rural humans. These results indicate parallel effects of
urbanization on human and wildlife gut microbiota and suggest spillover of
bacteria from humans into wildlife in cities