Brian Dillard

Abstract Bacterial species within the mammalian gut microbiota exhibit considerable strain diversity associated with both geography and host genetic ancestry. However, because geography and ancestry are typically confounded, disentangling their contributions to the divergence of gut bacterial strains has remained challenging. Here we show that isolation by distance (IBD) promotes gut bacterial strain divergence within host species independently of host ancestry.

Abstract Laboratory mice (Mus musculus domesticus) harbor gut bacterial strains that are distinct from those of wild mice but whose evolutionary histories are unclear.