The gut microbiome of wild chimpanzees is largely unexplored. Here, we shotgun sequenced ~600 faecal samples collected over a period of 10 years from wild chimpanzees in Tanzania within the Greater Mahale Ecosystem. We explored the effect of seasonality using a longitudinal dataset covering one year at a specific location (Issa Valley) and found that seasonality strongly shapes gut microbiome composition in wild chimpanzees. These seasonal differences can be attributed to potentially novel bacterial species (unannotated MAGs at the species level).
Emilie Egholm Bruun Jensen’s presentation