A Palearctic view of a bat fungal disease.

The fungal infection causing white-nose disease in hibernating bats in North America has resulted in dramatic population declines of affected species, since the introduction of the causative agent Pseudogymnoascus destructans. The fungus is native to the Palearctic, where it also infects several bat species, yet rarely causes severe pathology or the death of the host. Pseudogymnoascus destructans infects bats during hibernation by invading and digesting the skin tissue, resulting in the disruption of torpor patterns and consequent emaciation.

When the host's away, the pathogen will play: the protective role of the skin microbiome during hibernation.

The skin of animals is enveloped by a symbiotic microscopic ecosystem known as the microbiome. The host and microbiome exhibit a mutualistic relationship, collectively forming a single evolutionary unit sometimes referred to as a holobiont. Although the holobiome theory highlights the importance of the microbiome, little is known about how the skin microbiome contributes to protecting the host.

Maternal transmission gives way to social transmission during gut microbiota assembly in wild mice.

Background: The mammalian gut microbiota influences a wide array of phenotypes which are relevant to fitness, yet knowledge about the transmission routes by which gut microbes colonise hosts in natural populations remains limited. Here, we use an intensively studied wild population of wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) to examine how vertical (maternal) and horizontal (social) transmission routes influence gut microbiota composition throughout life.

Results: We identify independent signals of maternal transmission (sharing of taxa between a mother and her offspring) and social transmission (sharing of taxa predicted by the social network), whose relative magnitudes shift as hosts age.

Synchronous Seasonality in the Gut Microbiota of Wild Mouse Populations.

The gut microbiome performs many important functions in mammalian hosts, with community composition shaping its functional role. However, the factors that drive individual microbiota variation in wild animals and to what extent these are predictable or idiosyncratic across populations remains poorly understood. Here, we use a multi-population dataset from a common rodent species (the wood mouse, ), to test whether a consistent "core" gut microbiota is identifiable in this species, and to what extent the predictors of microbiota variation are consistent across populations.

Social networks strongly predict the gut microbiota of wild mice.

The mammalian gut teems with microbes, yet how hosts acquire these symbionts remains poorly understood. Research in primates suggests that microbes can be picked up via social contact, but the role of social interactions in non-group-living species remains underexplored. Here, we use a passive tracking system to collect high resolution spatiotemporal activity data from wild mice (Apodemus sylvaticus).