Conference PaperGut microbiome diversity in wild Kinda baboons using a shotgun metagenomic approach.Sen, S; Mubemba, B; Petersdorf, M; Katinta, M; Schneider-Crease, IA; Chiou, KL; Weyher, AH; Kamilar, JMGut microbiomes can affect host health, fitness, and evolution. A large majority of gut microbiome research focuses on inferring microbial taxonomic diversity with the 16S rRNA gene, while shotgun metagenomic approaches can quantify both taxonomic and functional diversity of microbes. This level of detail is critical for understanding relationships between taxonomic, functional, and strain-level diversity of the microbial community and its interactions with host ecology, life history, and behavior. During 2023-2024, we collected fecal samples and behavioral data from a group of habituated Kinda baboons (Papio kindae) in Kasanka National Park, Zambia. We characterized taxonomic and functional microbiome diversity in more than 90 fecal samples using a shotgun metagenomics approach with the Watchmaker DNA Library Prep Kit and the HUMAnN3 bioinformatics pipeline. We found that Firmicutes was the most abundantly representative phylum, comprising more than 75% of our dataset, followed by Proteobacteria, Bacteroidota, and Candidatus Melainabacteria, each comprising less than 5% in all of our samples. Multidimensional scaling analysis of Bray-Curtis dissimilarity indices did not reveal any differences between the gut microbiome community of adult male and female baboons. These results may be due to a limited sample size but could also indicate that the relatively close social connections between males and females may facilitate the transmission of microbes among individuals and reduce sex differences. Future research will discuss these possibilities, and test hypotheses related to individual personality traits and social network characteristics.American Society of Primatologists.2025-06-1710667619https://doi.org/2141627National Science Foundation