Prehistoric global migration of vanishing gut microbes with humans

The gut microbiome is crucial for health and is affected strongly by lifestyle 1 . Many microorganisms commonly found in non-industrialized populations are disappearing or have become extinct in industrialized populations 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . Studying which microorganisms have been long-term residents of the human gut and may have co-evolved with humans 2 , 7 , 8 could provide insights into how microbial biodiversity loss affects human health. However, the genetic complexities of microbial evolution and the plasticity of gut microbiome composition have made it challenging to resolve the evolutionary history of these long-term associations. Here we performed deep metagenomic sequencing of the Tsimane horticulturalists of Bolivia and compared their gut microbiomes with those of the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania 3 .