GUT Instincts: the microbiome’s Potential in Organismal Resilience to environmental change – GUTPOWER

Humans are rapidly altering ecosystems and significantly impacting biodiversity. Understanding species' resilience—their ability to recover from disturbances—is crucial for effective conservation. GUTPOWER explores the role of gut microbiota in enhancing resilience. The gut microbiota, composed of beneficial microorganisms in the digestive tract, not only aids digestion but also influences metabolism, immunity, health, and cognition. It may play a key role in acclimating species to environmental stressors by facilitating rapid phenotypic plasticity. However, the role of gut microbiota in resilience to environmental changes has been largely unexplored, particularly through manipulative experiments in wild species. GUTPOWER focuses on wild orange-fin anemonefish Amphiprion chrysopterus in Moorea, French Polynesia, and has four main objectives: 1. Characterize Gut Microbiota: Determine the baseline diversity and function of gut microbiota in young fish and how it changes with age. 2. Impact of Environmental Stressors: Investigate how artificial light at night alters gut microbiota and resilience, and identify microbial functions linked to stress. 3. Enhancing Resilience through Microbiota Transfers: Test whether transferring gut microbiota from resilient individuals to others can enhance their resilience to stressors like thermal stress. 4. Network Modelling: Apply network modelling to understand how interactions between gut microbiota and host organisms predict resilience. This interdisciplinary project integrates manipulative experiments in the wild with physiology, behaviour, molecular biology, and network modelling to uncover the role of gut microbiota in aging and resilience to environmental stressors. GUTPOWER will provide valuable insights into how gut microbiota can inform strategies for enhancing resilience in marine species. This research is aligned with global biodiversity conservation efforts and could contribute to the restoration of marine ecosystems.