Corrigendum: Microclimate shapes the phylosymbiosis of rodent gut microbiota in Jordan's Great Rift Valley

Enas Al-khlifeh¹Sanaz Khadem²Bela Hausmann^3,4David Berry^2,3*

• ¹Laboratory of Immunology, Department of medical laboratory science, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, Jordan
• ²Division of Microbial Ecology, Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
• ³Joint Microbiome Facility of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
• ⁴Division of Clinical Microbiology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

ntroductionGeological and climatic variables can have a considerable effect on bioclimatic regions. Species living in the same bioclimatic zone have common evolutionary elements. However, the primary bioclimatic zones on Earth differ to varied degrees in terms of the biotic and abiotic components of the land that support species with similar lifestyles and adaptations. Therefore, bioclimatic zones can provide information on the patterns of hosts and symbionts that coexist with them. The ubiquitous microbial populations in an animal gut, or gut microbiome, is a major partner in most animal symbioses. Therefore, it is important to focus on increasing knowledge of its effects on health and metabolism, and how its hosts respond to stress. Microbiome composition has been found to be irregular, unstable, and not always completely inherited, primarily because of the interaction between modifications in the microbiome ecosystem and changes in the evolutionary past of the host (Brooks et al., 2016). Therefore, the term “phylosymbiosis” has recently gained popularity.According to the traditional definition of phylosymbiosis, hosts belonging to the same species are more likely to have similar microbiota than those belonging to distinct species. Strongly settled phylosymbiotic patterns are caused by microbial colonization preferences for specific host genetic identities (Lim and Bordenstein, 2020). A portion of microbiome traits have a strong genetic component, such as vertical inheritance (Ferretti et al., 2018) and physical contact between members of one species (Dill-McFarland et al., 2019). However, these mechanisms alone cannot explain the distinctive microbiome makeup or structure of animals. Given that a microbiome can be acquired through environmental acquisition over the course of an animal’s lifespan (Mukherjee et al., 2021), geography and past climatic conditions need to be considered. Microbiomes that are abundant in the host habitat and can colonize host niches are more likely to persist from one host generation to the next. Therefore, the associated microbiomes of various animal species living in the same bioclimatic region are expected to be comparable and analogously adapted to bioclimatic zone conditions.Several studies have led to an understanding of how the environmental distribution affects phylosymbiosis. However, multiple environmental comparisons have shed light on how many biotic and abiotic factors shape selective pressures, some of which are known to promote adaptation of the host microbiome in some ecosystems more than others. For instance, several studies on different host linage have provided evidence of geography playing an important role in the formation of the host-associated microbiome without host-specific input (Goertz et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2020; Moraitou et al., 2022; Joakim et al., 2023). In the case of microbiome evolution across various mouse lineages, Teng et al. (2022) highlighted the opposing roles of host genetics and the environment. They showed that the environment has a greater effect than host species identity (Teng et al., 2022). In addition, the gut microbiome diversity of many rodent species is thought to be influenced by host genetic and geographic differences (Wang et al., 2022). Geographic trends in microbiota composition in human and mouse gut microbiomes have been recognized (Linnenbrink et al., 2013; Rehman et al., 2016; Suzuki et al., 2019). Suzuki et al., 2019 and Goertz et al. (2019) demonstrated that location and latitudinal zonation, including at small spatial scales, significantly influenced the composition of the gut microbiome in wild-type mice (Goertz et al., 2019; Suzuki et al., 2019). These studies have shed light on the impact of abiotic variables on microbiome composition and abundance despite focusing on certain host species. However, studies that compare heterospecific hosts can be beneficial and help to deepen our understanding of the causes of phylosymbiosis.The Earth is divided into seven main biogeographical zones by climate parameters, such as temperature, concurrent changes in precipitation levels, vegetation, and soil types (Box, 2016). We focused on three zones of the Great Rift Valley (GRV). The GRV landform separates the southern highlands of Jordan into geographical segments that adjoin the Sudanian, Iran–Turanian, and Mediterranean bioclimatic zones (Ababsa, 2014). Although these regions are believed to have the same evolutionary history and geological characteristics, the Sudanian region faces the African continent from the south and has a tropical climate. Meanwhile, the Mediterranean area is located on a slope confronting the northern side of the European continent. Temperate climatic traits are also observed in this zone. Statistics on temperature and solar radiation have shown that the Sudanese biogeographic region receives eight times more solar radiation than the Mediterranean region (Etier et al., 2010; Alrwashdeh et al., 2018), and its mean annual temperature is 10°C higher (Ababsa, 2014).Given the unusual existence of different bioclimatic regions in the GRV, the wildlife fauna is exceptionally diverse, with wild rodents comprising a substantial proportion (Amr et al., 2018). Rodents encounter various conditions in their natural habitats that affect their level of fitness. Rodents are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation, particularly in biogeographic areas (Ramírez-Bautista et al., 2020). Temperature fluctuations in the environment can influence gut microbiota (reviewed in Sepulveda and Moeller, 2020). Therefore, it is anticipated that climatic variables are likely to have a significant effect on the microbiomes of these animals. Animals demonstrate their own mechanisms of adaptation when confronted with difficult biotic or abiotic circumstances. However, they also depend on their associated symbionts for survival. Moeller et al. (2019) offered experimental evidence that the gut microbiome fueled the adaptive evolution of the house mouse M. m. domesticus and had a significant effect on host fitness (Moeller et al., 2019). Rodents are an appropriate model for studying phylosymbiotic patterns in relation to bioclimatic sites.