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Genomics & single-cellU ZurichU PalermoUniversitat Pompeu FabraInstitut de Biologia EvolutivaBarcelona School of EconomicsUiT The Arctic University of Nor

Agta hunter-gatherer oral microbiomes are shaped by contact network structure

Agta hunter-gatherer oral microbiomes resemble Central African foragers more than neighbors, with contact networks predicting bacterial transmission and central individuals as supersharers.

Federico Musciotto, Begoña Dobón, Michael John Greenacre, Álex Mira, Nikhil Chaudhary, Guz Deniz Salali, Pascale Gerbault, Rodoplh Schlaepfer, Leonora H. Astete, Marilyn Ngales, Jesús Gómez‐Gardeñes, Vito Latora, Federico Battiston, Jaume Bertranpetit, Lucio Vinicius, Andrea Bamberg Migliano

Published Dec 31, 2030Paper ↗

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Wireless proximity predicts bacterial sharing and supersharers among Agta, but the predominantly pathogenic framing overreaches on just 7% of variants, leaving transmission versus shared environment unresolved.

Abstract

Here we investigate the effects of extensive sociality and mobility on the oral microbiome of 138 Agta hunter-gatherers from the Philippines. Our comparisons of microbiome composition showed that the Agta are more similar to Central African Bayaka hunter-gatherers than to neighbouring farmers. We also defined the Agta social microbiome as a set of 137 oral bacteria (only 7% of 1980 amplicon sequence variants) significantly influenced by social contact (quantified through wireless sensors of short-range interactions). We show that large interaction networks including strong links between close kin, spouses, and even unrelated friends, can significantly predict bacterial transmission networks across Agta camps. Finally, we show that more central individuals to social networks are also bacterial supersharers. We conclude that hunter-gatherer social microbiomes are predominantly pathogenic and were shaped by evolutionary tradeoffs between extensive sociality and disease spread.