<b>Impact of animal sociality on microbiome community ecology: insights from meerkats in the Kalahari</b>

Addressing a critical gap in our understanding of wildlife microbiomes, our study used data on meerkats to investigate the relative importance of aspects of animal sociality, compared to biological characteristics, environmental exposure, and microbe-specific factors, on the composition and structure of their microbiomes. The study is currently <i>under review</i>. The datasets included here constitute R code used, or data files input or generated from, Network Analyses and Joint Species Distributions Models that were used to realise the study objectives. File names and content embedded within the R code contain explanations pertaining to each dataset. For more information please contact either Krishna Balasubramaniam ([e-mail]) or Simone Sommer ([e-mail]) who are the first and last authors of the study.<b>Abstract of the study:</b>The social organisation of animals is likely to influence the composition, structure and stability of their microbiomes, but we currently know little about these effects. Addressing this gap is critical to advance knowledge of the impact of the ‘social microbiome’ on animal health and survival. Here we use a long-term, individual based study of Kalahari meerkats to assess the relative importance of multiple aspects of animal sociality, and social compared to biological, environmental, and microbe-specific factors, in influencing microbiome communities. Bacterial ASVs exhibited highly 'nested', weakly 'modular' structures: hosts with lower diversity harboured ASVs that were subsets of the overall diversity, but a few bacterial taxa were found in distinct host clusters. Many meerkats showed high diversity of ASVs, while only a minority exhibited lower bacterial diversity. Meerkats within the same group had greater bacterial similarity compared to those from different groups. Moreover group membership strongly influenced the co-occurrence of many beneficial ASVs, but also few ASVs that are detrimental to host health. This effect of group membership was stronger than kinship, although closer relatives showed greater bacterial similarity within some groups. While social, biological, and environmental factors all influenced bacterial abundance, meerkats' group membership, age, and sampling time after sunrise had the greatest impact. In comparison, individual-level social variables (dominance, immigration status), and other environmental (temperature, rainfall, hours since foraging), demographic (sex), and health-related (body condition, disease status) factors, all had weaker effects on bacterial abundance. Finally, within-host ASV-ASV co-occurrence irrespective of phylogenetic relatedness also had a strong impact on bacterial communities. Our study demonstrates that microbiome communities are shaped by multiple factors, thus emphasizing the need to effectively distinguish the influence of host social organisation from individual-specific aspects of sociality, biological characteristics, environmental exposure, and microbe-microbe associations. By evaluating the ecological and evolutionary drivers of beneficial and detrimental microbes and their co-occurrence, we also lay the foundation for exploring the links between the ‘social microbiome’ and animal health.本研究针对当前学界对野生生物微生物组认知中的关键空白，以狐獴为研究对象，探究动物社会性各维度相较于生物学特征、环境暴露及微生物特异性因素对其微生物组组成与结构的相对重要性。本研究目前处于审稿阶段。 本文所提供的数据集涵盖本研究用于网络分析（Network Analyses）与联合物种分布模型（Joint Species Distributions Models）的R代码，以及上述分析所用的输入数据或生成的数据文件。R代码内嵌的文件名与内容均附有各数据集的相关说明。如需获取更多信息，请联系本文第一作者克里希纳·巴拉苏布拉马尼亚姆（Krishna Balasubramaniam，邮箱：[e-mail]）或通讯作者西蒙娜·佐默（Simone Sommer，邮箱：[e-mail]）。 研究摘要： 动物的社会组织模式可能会影响其微生物组的组成、结构与稳定性，但目前学界对这类影响的认知仍较为匮乏。填补这一认知空白，对于深入理解"社会微生物组"对动物健康与存活的影响至关重要。本研究依托一项针对卡拉哈里狐獴的长期个体跟踪研究，评估动物社会性多维度特征，以及社会性因素相较于生物学、环境与微生物特异性因素对微生物组群落的相对重要性。 研究发现，细菌扩增子序列变体（Amplicon Sequence Variants, ASV）呈现出高度"嵌套"、弱"模块化"的结构：多样性较低的宿主所携带的ASV均为整体多样性的子集，但少数细菌类群仅存在于特定宿主集群中。多数狐獴的ASV多样性较高，仅少数个体的细菌多样性较低。同群体狐獴间的细菌相似性显著高于不同群体个体。此外，群体归属对多数有益ASV的共现关系具有强烈影响，对少数对宿主健康有害的ASV亦是如此。尽管亲缘关系较近的个体在部分群体中细菌相似性更高，但群体归属的影响强度远超亲缘关系。 尽管社会性、生物学与环境因素均会影响细菌丰度，但狐獴的群体归属、年龄以及日出后的采样时间是影响细菌丰度的最主要因素。相较而言，个体水平的社会变量（社会等级、迁入状态）、其他环境因素（气温、降雨量、距上次觅食时长）、种群统计学特征（性别）以及健康相关因素（身体状况、疾病状态）对细菌丰度的影响均较弱。最后，不考虑系统发育亲缘关系的宿主内ASV间共现关系，也对细菌群落具有显著影响。 本研究表明，微生物组群落受多重因素共同塑造，因此亟需有效区分宿主社会组织、个体社会性特征、生物学特征、环境暴露以及微生物间关联对微生物组的影响。通过探究有益与有害微生物的生态与进化驱动因子及其共现关系，本研究也为探索"社会微生物组"与动物健康之间的关联奠定了基础。