No evidence for phylosymbiosis in western chipmunk species

Phylosymbiosis refers to a congruent pattern between the similarity of microbiomes of different species and the branching pattern of the host phylogeny. Phylosymbiosis has been detected in a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate hosts, but has only been assessed in geographically isolated populations. We tested for phylosymbiosis in eight (sub)species of western chipmunks with overlapping ranges and ecological niches; we used a nuclear (Acrosin) and a mitochondrial (CYTB) phylogenetic marker because there are many instances of mitochondrial introgression in chipmunks. We predicted that similarity among microbiomes increases with: (1) increasing host mitochondrial relatedness, (2) increasing host nuclear genome relatedness and (3) decreasing geographic distance among hosts. We did not find statistical evidence supporting phylosymbiosis in western chipmunks. Furthermore, in contrast to studies of other mammalian microbiomes, similarity of chipmunk microbiomes is not predominantly determined by host species. Sampling site explained most variation in microbiome composition, indicating an important role of local environment in shaping microbiomes. Fecal microbiomes of chipmunks were dominated by Bacteroidetes (72.2%), followed by Firmicutes (24.5%), which is one of the highest abundances of Bacteroidetes detected in wild mammals. Future work will need to elucidate the effects of habitat, ecology and host genomics on chipmunk microbiomes.