TY - JOUR TI - Experimental evaluation of the importance of colonization history in early-life gut microbiota assembly AU - Martínez, Inés AU - Maldonado-Gomez, Maria X AU - Gomes-Neto, João Carlos AU - Kittana, Hatem AU - Ding, Hua AU - Schmaltz, Robert AU - Joglekar, Payal AU - Cardona, Roberto Jiménez AU - Marsteller, Nathan L AU - Kembel, Steven W AU - Benson, Andrew K AU - Peterson, Daniel A AU - Ramer-Tait, Amanda E AU - Walter, Jens A2 - Ley, Ruth Emily A2 - Garrett, Wendy S VL - 7 PY - 2018 DA - 2018/09/18 SP - e36521 C1 - eLife 2018;7:e36521 DO - 10.7554/eLife.36521 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36521 AB - The factors that govern assembly of the gut microbiota are insufficiently understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that inter-individual microbiota variation can arise solely from differences in the order and timing by which the gut is colonized early in life. Experiments in which mice were inoculated in sequence either with two complex seed communities or a cocktail of four bacterial strains and a seed community revealed that colonization order influenced both the outcome of community assembly and the ecological success of individual colonizers. Historical contingency and priority effects also occurred in Rag1-/- mice, suggesting that the adaptive immune system is not a major contributor to these processes. In conclusion, this study established a measurable effect of colonization history on gut microbiota assembly in a model in which host and environmental factors were strictly controlled, illuminating a potential cause for the high levels of unexplained individuality in host-associated microbial communities. KW - community ecology KW - gut microbiota KW - colonisation history KW - Lactobacillus KW - priority effect KW - historical contingency JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -