Host ecological context influences taxonomic diversity and functional conservation of gut microbiome across anthropogenic habitats in macaques

Abstract

Gut microbiome responses to anthropogenic disturbance vary across wildlife species, even within similarly disturbed landscapes. What drives this variation is unclear: whether it reflects anthropogenic exposure itself or broader ecological differences among hosts. We tested this using three macaque species with contrasting ecology, Bonnet, Rhesus, and Lion-tailed macaques, sampled across 12 sites in southern India spanning contrasting anthropogenic exposure, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing (n = 127) and shotgun metagenomics on a subset of samples. The two synurbanized species exhibited a similar magnitude of microbiome restructuring but differed in the taxa underlying these changes; no differentially abundant amplicon sequence variants were shared across all three species, indicating that shared anthropogenic exposure did not produce uniform microbial responses across hosts. The specialist Lion-tailed macaque showed a more extensive response, characterized by reduced diversity and phylogenetically structured compositional change. The Bonnet macaque showed greater microbial similarity with the Rhesus macaque than with the Lion-tailed macaque during sympatric co-occurrence. Despite taxonomic divergence, functional pathway architecture was broadly conserved across species and habitats, with selective shifts in pathways including vitamin B6 biosynthesis and fermentation. Together, these findings show that microbiome responses to anthropogenic environments are jointly shaped by ecological context and host ecology, with host differences in diet, habitat use, and ecological history influencing the magnitude and nature of microbial restructuring. These findings show that taxonomic diversity and functional potential respond as partially decoupled axes under anthropogenic pressure, with implications for assessing microbiome resilience across ecologically heterogeneous wildlife.