Sarah Hird

When I was two to three weeks postpartum (living in California), I was at home with a seemingly healthy baby but I was falling apart.

Abstract In a recent article, Keady et al. analyzed mammalian milk microbiomes across 47 species and found their assembly to be largely determined by stochastic (i.e., random) processes. In many ways, host-associated microbiomes are not random, but random events may have an underappreciated role in microbiome assembly, persistence, and ecology.

Highlights Recent years have seen a surge in research on the wild bird microbiomes, with >100 published nonpoultry gut-microbiome studies between 2017 and 2020. We are beginning to understand the ecological, evolutionary, and environmental factors influencing the composition, variation, and functions of individual symbionts and communities. Gut symbionts may play important roles in sustaining avian ecology and facilitate host biological roles, distribution and diversity.