Urban Gut Microbiome: Unravelling the microbial contribution to wildlife adaptation to urban environments (UGMi)

Objective

Urbanization imposes novel environmental stressors that can drive rapid evolutionary responses in wildlife. While vertebrate studies suggest that host-associated microbiomes play a critical role in adaptation to urban environments, their functional contributions in invertebrate hosts remain poorly understood. This project, The Urban Gut Microbiome (TUGM), investigates how gut microbiomes contribute to adaptation in urban settings using the moth Xestia xanthographa as a model system. By integrating microbial ecology, evolutionary biology, genomics, and microbiology, TUGM will (i) assess how urbanization shapes gut microbiome diversity and function, (ii) evaluate whether gut microbiome drive phenotypic plasticity and gene expression via reciprocal microbiome transplants in germ-free larvae, and (iii) assess microbial contribution to host phenotypes through isolate reinoculation assays under simulated urban scenarios. Through a combination of field sampling, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and manipulative experiments, this project aims to provide mechanistic insights into the role of gut microbes in mediating host adaptation to urban environments. TUGM thus advances beyond descriptive studies, offering a novel, interdisciplinary framework to explore the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of host–microbiome interactions in a rapidly urbanizing world.