A new study headed by scientists at Duke University found that chimpanzees who are more sociable may help transmit "good" gut microbes.
The team monitored wild chimpanzees at Gombe National Park over a period of eight years, taking note of the changes in their gut microbes and social behavior. They found that the amount of healthy bacteria in the chimpanzees' gastrointestinal tracts increases in chimps that are more sociable and experience close contact with others, giving scientists another factor that can help maintain healthy gut microbes.
Our intestines house hundreds of bacteria species that aid in the breakdown of food, synthesis of vitamins and other beneficial bodily functions. A reduction in these microbes in humans has been linked to diabetes, obesity and various other diseases.
"The more diverse people's microbiomes are, the more resistant they seem to be to opportunistic infections," Andrew Moeller, co-author of the study, said in a press release.
The team determined the amount of gut bacteria by analyzing the DNA in droppings collected from 40 chimpanzees during the course of the study, with their ages ranging from babies to seniors, and compared this data with daily records of the animals' social behavior. Additionally, they identified thousands of bacteria species in animal guts that are also found in human gastrointestinal tracts, such as the Olsenella and Prevotella species.
"Chimpanzees tend to spend more time together during the wet season when food is more abundant," said Steffen Foerster, another co-author of the study. "During the dry season they spend more time alone."
The results showed that chimpanzees carry about 20 to 25 percent more gut bacteria during the social wet season as compared to the dry season, and further analysis revealed that these changes were not just due to seasonal changes in diet, but also the amount of social activity they experienced.
Further studies will need to be conducted to determine if these results apply to humans.
"One of the main reasons that we started studying the microbiomes of chimpanzees was that it allowed us to do studies that have not or cannot be done in humans," study co-author Howard Ochman said. "It's really an amazing and previously underexploited resource."
The findings were published in the Jan. 15 issue of Science Advances.
