Probiotic interventions for understanding gut microbiome-mediated behaviour in wildlife

The gut microbiome influences how animals behave and interact with their environment through the microbiome-gut-brain-axis (MGBA). There is urgent need to understand how the MGBA operates in wild animals because cognition and behaviour facilitate rapid responses to global environmental change. Wild animals harbour more complex microbiomes compared to traditional laboratory rodent systems, therefore, integrative and intervention methods applied to wild populations are vital to advance knowledge in this field. This project will ask how natural microbiome variation affects behavioural phenotypes and overcome the challenge of manipulating the microbiome in non-model species.
Great tits (Parus major) are an important, intensively studied wild avian model with highly variable gut microbiota associated with host behaviour. Despite the vast range of commercially available probiotics, including Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium spp. for growth promotion in poultry, tailor-made probiotics will be necessary for effective and ecologically valid experimental manipulations of the gut microbiome in wild birds.
The following objectives will be prioritised and developed:
1) Describe and compare the genetic function of gut microbes cultured and sequenced from wild bird faeces across habitat gradients.
2) Test the efficacy of host-origin probiotics, i.e. microbial isolates derived from birds, that colonise when ingested and have health benefits.
3) Determine the gut microbiome's role in mediating behaviour through intervention methods.