Understanding the interplay between the gut microbiome, behavior and urbanisation in wild birds

SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND
Behaviour facilitates rapid, flexible responses to environmental change. Despite accumulating evidence that intestinal microbiota communities and their genes (the gut microbiome) have beneficial effects on host behaviour, our understanding of these mechanisms operating in wild animals is sorely lacking. What are the consequences of gut microbiome variation for behavioural responses to anthropogenic activities? And how does urbanisation shape wild animal gut microbiomes?

Pinpointing the mechanisms that contribute to urban success in wildlife is an important conservation goal. Individuals with high levels of behavioural flexibility are more likely to thrive in urban environments, but we have yet to understand what drives behavioural variation. If the gut microbiome regulates behaviour, then the environmental impact associated with land use change may be so sudden and extreme that it prevents wildlife from acquiring beneficial gut microbes necessary to behave flexibly and survive in novel habitats.

The UK's largest new town developments (Northstowe, New Waterbeach) are in East Anglia, and you will address the urgent and timely hypothesis that rural bird gut microbiomes may limit or facilitate behavioural responses to urbanisation.

METHODS
You will combine research with wild great tit (Parus major) populations, and citizen science-based bird monitoring. You will collect faecal samples from birds in the wild, fit birds with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and measure their behaviour using RFID feeders. You will pioneer a novel and practical monitoring program to collect wildlife faecal samples through citizen science with access to the British Trust for Ornithology's (BTO) exceptional Garden BirdWatch scheme. You will perform 16S rRNA sequencing paired with metabolic functional analyses to unpick microbiome-host behaviour relationships.

The following objectives will be prioritised and developed according to your interests:

1) Quantify gut microbiome variation between urban and rural populations.

2) Assess whether the gut microbiome predicts behaviours associated with urban success (e.g. behavioural flexibility and boldness).

3) Determine the gut microbiome's role in facilitating or limiting individual acclimation to newly developed urban environments.