Primate microbial endocrinology: An uncharted frontier

Abstract

Gut microbial communities communicate bidirectionally with the brain through endocrine, immune, and neural signaling, influencing the physiology and behavior of hosts. The emerging field of microbial endocrinology offers innovative perspectives and methods to analyze host-microbe relationships with relevance to primate ecology, evolution, and conservation. Herein we briefly summarize key findings from microbial endocrinology and explore how applications of a similar framework could inform our understanding of primate stress and reproductive physiology and behavior. We conclude with three guiding hypotheses to further investigate endocrine signaling between gut microbes and the host: (a) host-microbe communication systems promote microbe-mediated stability, in which the microbes are using endocrine signaling from the host to maintain a functioning habitat for their own fitness, (b) host-microbe communication systems promote host-mediated stability, in which the host uses the endocrine system to monitor microbial communities and alter these communities to maintain stability, or (c) host-microbe systems are simply the product of coincidental cross-talk between the host and microbes due to similar molecules from shared ancestry. Utilizing theory and methodology for studying relationships between the microbiome, hormones, and behavior of wild primates is an uncharted frontier with many promising insights when applied to primatology.