| Literature DB >> 29372120 |
Krishna Balasubramaniam1, Brianne Beisner1,2, Jiahui Guan3, Jessica Vandeleest1,2, Hsieh Fushing3, Edward Atwill1, Brenda McCowan1,2.
Abstract
In group-living animals, heterogeneity in individuals' social connections may mediate the sharing of microbial infectious agents. In this regard, the genetic relatedness of individuals' commensal gut bacterium Escherichia coli may be ideal to assess the potential for pathogen transmission through animal social networks. Here we use microbial phylogenetics and population genetics approaches, as well as host social network reconstruction, to assess evidence for the contact-mediated sharing of E. coli among three groups of captively housed rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), at multiple organizational scales. For each group, behavioral data on grooming, huddling, and aggressive interactions collected for a six-week period were used to reconstruct social network communities via the Data Cloud Geometry (DCG) clustering algorithm. Further, an E. coli isolate was biochemically confirmed and genotypically fingerprinted from fecal swabs collected from each macaque. Population genetics approaches revealed that Group Membership, in comparison to intrinsic attributes like age, sex, and/or matriline membership of individuals, accounted for the highest proportion of variance in E. coli genotypic similarity. Social network approaches revealed that such sharing was evident at the community-level rather than the dyadic level. Specifically, although we found no links between dyadic E. coli similarity and social contact frequencies, similarity was significantly greater among macaques within the same social network communities compared to those across different communities. Moreover, tests for one of our study-groups confirmed that E. coli isolated from macaque rectal swabs were more genotypically similar to each other than they were to isolates from environmentally deposited feces. In summary, our results suggest that among frequently interacting, spatially constrained macaques with complex social relationships, microbial sharing via fecal-oral, social contact-mediated routes may depend on both individuals' direct connections and on secondary network pathways that define community structure. They lend support to the hypothesis that social network communities may act as bottlenecks to contain the spread of infectious agents, thereby encouraging disease control strategies to focus on multiple organizational scales. Future directions includeincreasing microbial sampling effort per individual to better-detect dyadic transmission events, and assessments of the co-evolutionary links between sociality, infectious agent risk, and host immune function.Entities:
Keywords: Commensal E. coli; Community structure; Microbial sharing; Rhesus macaque; Social networks
Year: 2018 PMID: 29372120 PMCID: PMC5775753 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4271
Source DB: PubMed Journal: PeerJ ISSN: 2167-8359 Impact factor: 2.984
Demographic characteristics of the three study-groups of rhesus macaques,
| Group ID | Number of matrilines | Age (mean ± SD) | Max. age | Min. age | Year of formation | Number of adults sampled | Number of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group I | 13 | 8.02 ± 5.39 | 29 | 3 | 1991 | 101 | 79 |
| Group II | 13 | 8.30 ± 4.69 | 21 | 3 | 1995 | 96 | 78 |
| Group III | 26 | 5.94 ± 2.54 | 11 | 3 | 2005 | 102 | 86 |
Notes.
Fragmented matriline structure, since the group was composed of younger individuals introduced from multiple other groups.
Figure 1Phylogenetic tree of E. coli genotypic relationships isolated from 79 rhesus macaques in group I.
The tree was constructed using the UPGMA algorithm in the software Bionumerics (version 6.6, Applied Maths Inc.).
Hierarchical or Nested Analyses of Molecular Variance (AMOVAs) testing for the effect of group membership on the variance of E. coli genotypic diversity across three groups of captive rhesus macaques (244 isolates in total).
P values indicate significance based on randomization tests after 1,000 permutations.
| Source of variation | SSD | MSD | Sigma2 | %Sigma2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | Age nested within Groups | ||||||
| Among Groups | 60.10 | 30.05 | 0.24 | 93.63 | 2 | 0.001 | |
| Among age categories | 53.00 | 10.60 | 0.01 | 6.37 | 5 | 0.996 | |
| T2 | Sex nested within Groups | ||||||
| Among groups | 60.10 | 30.05 | 0.20 | 73.72 | 2 | 0.001 | |
| Among sex categories | 38.06 | 12.69 | 0.07 | 26.28 | 3 | 0.061 | |
| T3 | Matriline nested within Groups (Groups I & II only) | ||||||
| Among Groups | 29.45 | 29.45 | 0.26 | 75.00 | 1 | 0.012 | |
| Among matrilines within Groups | 22.55 | 9.67 | 0.09 | 25.00 | 23 | 0.87 |
Notes.
p < 0.01.
p < 0.05.
Sum of Squares Deviation
Mean Squared Deviation
Observed variance in genotypic diversity
Figure 2Box-plot indicating the effect of group membership on E. coli % similarity.
Mean similarity coefficient was significantly greater among macaques in group III in comparison to those in Groups I and II.
Univariate MR-QAP regression models examining the effects of dyadic social behavioral interactions and kinship on the % genetic similarity of E. coli.
| Model | Group I | Group II | Group III | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −5.91 | 0.24 | −3.36 | 0.4 | −4.1 | 0.32 | |
| −5.71 | 0.30 | 10.92 | 0.05 | −1.7 | 0.68 | |
| 3.22 | 0.05 | 7.17 | 0.02 | −0.17 | 0.97 | |
| 0.21 | 0.84 | 0.88 | 0.35 | |||
Notes.
Kinship data not analyzed for Group III on account of disproportionate representation of non-kin over close kin dyads.
Number of hierarchical levels and communities in the macaque DCG trees.
| DCG tree | Group I | Group II | Group III | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H | C | H | C | H | C | |
| Grooming | 5(3) | 8 | 5(3) | 8 | 5(3) | 8 |
| Huddling | 3(2) | 9 | 3(2) | 4 | 3(2) | 15 |
| Aggression | 3(2) | 4 | 4(3) | 4 | 4(3) | 5 |
Notes.
Number of hierarchical levels. Values in parentheses indicate the level at which communities were identified
Number of communities (or clusters) identified
Figure 3DCG social network community structures reconstructed from (A) grooming, (B) huddling, and (A) aggressive interaction matrices for Group I macaques.
Permutation tests revealed that the assignment of cluster membership was significant at each hierarchical level of each tree (p < 0.01). The red line indicates the intermediate level at which community membership was assigned for the analyses.
Figure 4Box-plots indicating differences between E. coli % similarity among macaques within- versus between-social network communities based on their (A) grooming, (B) huddling, and (C) aggressive interactions.
Results from Wilcoxon Rank-Sum tests to detect differences between E. coli % similarity coefficients among individuals within the same versus across different social network community clusters.
Values in parentheses contain p values from randomization tests that compared the mean E. coli similarity coefficients among individuals within clusters, to means from 1,000 datasets in which cluster-membership was randomly assigned.
| DCG behavioral community | Group I | Group II | Group III |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grooming | 3.82 | 5.01 | 5.51 |
| Huddling | 5.84 | 2.80 | 9.51 |
| Aggression | 2.80 | 2.80 | 3.41 |
Notes.
p < 0.01.
p < 0.05.