Our study highlights the dynamic nature of gut colonization in early life and a suggest a new – but potentially pervasive – mechanism by which mothers might influence offspring phenotypic development and physiology in nature.

Following weaning, juvenile and mother gut microbiotas become more alike – a pattern that could be generated by shared genes, share environments, or preferential social bonds between mother-offspring dyads.

Maternal vertical transmission (via fecal-fecal comparisons) was not identified as a conduit for these early-life maternal effects, which instead could reflect slower phenotypic development in first infants. But shotgun data and milk samples are needed to conclude firmly.

During nursing, the gut microbiome of infants from first-time mothers was more milk-oriented compared to infants of multi-time mothers, suggesting an overall slower functional microbiota maturation.

Our results also provide some of the first empirical evidence for maternal effects on the infant gut microbiome, both during nursing and after weaning.

We first demonstrated that the trajectory of gut microbiome maturation in geladas largely resembles that of humans. Transition from milk to solid food during weaning drives most of the compositional and functional changes observed in the gut microbiome during early life.

Maternal microbial ecology (in particular vertical transmission during nursing) is known to influence offspring gut microbiota establishment – which in turn plays fundamental roles in infant development and potentially long-term fitness.

We characterized gut microbiome maturation during the first three years of life in young geladas and assessed the role of maternal effects in shaping offspring microbiome assembly.

🚨 Thrilled to share a new gelada microbiome paper out today in @CurrentBiology ! 🚨 doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.0… This is a big team effort involving: @sbululab, @Smack_Lab, @laurenpetrullo, @jcbeehner, @VocalMonkey, @reitsma_laurie, Sierra Sam and Arianne Mercer. A thread 👇

The Tsaobis Baboon Project is looking to recruit some volunteers for the new field season (3 to 6 months, between May-Oct 2022). Deadline for application is 10th Jan. Apply and get a wonderful field experience! zsl.org/science/research/bab…

The Tsaobis Baboon Project is looking to recruit 8 field assistants from April to Nov 2020 to go to Namibia and collect behavioural data on wild chacma baboons. Deadline for application: Thur 19 Dec. Please RT. More information here: zsl.org/science/research/bab…

Males are dirtier than females...also in non-human primates! Check out this new cool paper by Clemence Poirotte & Peter Kappeler: royalsocietypublishing.org/d…

Our last article is out! We found that male and female chacma baboons are more likely to reconcile following aggression, when they are involved in a strong social relationship with important fitness consequences. with C. Webb, G. Cowlishaw, E. Huchard sciencedirect.com/science/ar…