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Alteration of gut microbiota with a broad-spectrum antibiotic does not impair maternal care in the European earwiguse asterix (*) to get italics
Sophie Van Meyel, Séverine Devers, Simon Dupont, Franck Dedeine and Joël MeunierPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
2021
<p>The microbes residing within the gut of an animal host often increase their own fitness by modifying their host’s physiological, reproductive, and behavioural functions. Whereas recent studies suggest that they may also shape host sociality and therefore have critical effects on animal social evolution, the impact of the gut microbiota on maternal care remains unexplored. This is surprising, as this behaviour is widespread among animals, often determines the fitness of both juveniles and parents, and is essential in the evolution of complex animal societies. Here, we tested whether life-long alterations of the gut microbiota with rifampicin - a broad-spectrum antibiotic - impair pre- and post-hatching maternal care in the European earwig. Our results first confirm that rifampicin altered the mothers’ gut microbial communities and indicate that the composition of the gut microbiota differs before and after egg care. Contrary to our predictions, however, the rifampicin-induced alterations of the gut microbiota did not modify pre- or post-hatching care. Independent of maternal care, rifampicin increased the females’ feces production and resulted in lighter eggs and juveniles. By contrast, rifampicin altered none of the other 21 physiological, reproductive and longevity traits measured over the 300 days of a female’s lifetime. Overall, these findings reveal that altering the gut microbiota with a large spectrum antibiotic such as rifampicin does not necessarily affect host sociality. They also emphasize that not all animals have evolved a co-dependence with their microbiota and call for caution when generalizing the central role of gut microbes in host biology.</p>
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.08.331363v5.supplementary-materialYou should fill this box only if you chose 'All or part of the results presented in this preprint are based on data'. URL must start with http:// or https://
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4506829You should fill this box only if you chose 'Scripts were used to obtain or analyze the results'. URL must start with http:// or https://
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4506829You should fill this box only if you chose 'Codes have been used in this study'. URL must start with http:// or https://
Antibiotic, Dermaptera, Insect, Microbiome, Parental care
NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).
Behavior & Social Evolution, Evolutionary Ecology, Experimental Evolution, Life History, Species interactions
No need for them to be recommenders of PCIEvolBiol. Please do not suggest reviewers for whom there might be a conflict of interest. Reviewers are not allowed to review preprints written by close colleagues (with whom they have published in the last four years, with whom they have received joint funding in the last four years, or with whom they are currently writing a manuscript, or submitting a grant proposal), or by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of the review - see the code of conduct
e.g. John Doe [john@doe.com]
2020-10-09 14:07:47
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