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Agta hunter-gatherer oral microbiomes are shaped by contact network structure
Title / Series / Name
Publication Volume
Publication Issue
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Hunter-gatherers
disease spread
oral microbiome
social networks
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cultural Studies
Anthropology
Applied Psychology
disease spread
oral microbiome
social networks
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cultural Studies
Anthropology
Applied Psychology
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/26694
Abstract
Here we investigate the effects of extensive sociality and mobility on the oral microbiome of 138 Agta hunter-gatherers from the Philippines. Our comparisons of microbiome composition showed that the Agta are more similar to Central African BaYaka hunter-gatherers than to neighbouring farmers. We also defined the Agta social microbiome as a set of 137 oral bacteria (only 7% of 1980 amplicon sequence variants) significantly influenced by social contact (quantified through wireless sensors of short-range interactions). We show that large interaction networks including strong links between close kin, spouses and even unrelated friends can significantly predict bacterial transmission networks across Agta camps. Finally, we show that more central individuals to social networks are also bacterial supersharers. We conclude that hunter-gatherer social microbiomes are predominantly pathogenic and were shaped by evolutionary tradeoffs between extensive sociality and disease spread.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2023-02-23
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1017/ehs.2023.4