Relatives have more similar gut microbiomes than nonrelatives, but the degree to which this similarity results from shared genotypes versus shared environments has been controversial. Here, we leveraged 16,234 gut microbiome profiles, collected over 14 years from 585 wild baboons, to reveal that host genetic effects on the gut microbiome are nearly universal. Controlling for diet, age, and socioecological variation, 97% of microbiome phenotypes were significantly heritable, including several reported as heritable in humans. Heritability was typically low (mean = 0.068) but was systematically greater in the dry season, with low diet diversity, and in older hosts. We show that longitudinal profiles and large sample sizes are crucial to quantifying microbiome heritability, and indicate scope for selection on microbiome characteristics as a host phenotype.

亲属比非亲属拥有更多相似的肠道微生物组，但这种相似性是由共享基因型还是共享环境引起的，这一点一直存在争议。在这里，我们利用 14 年来从 585 只野生狒狒中收集的 16,234 个肠道微生物组图谱，揭示宿主遗传对肠道微生物组的影响几乎是普遍的。控制饮食、年龄和社会生态变异，97% 的微生物组表型具有显着遗传性，其中一些报告为人类遗传。遗传力通常较低（平均值 = 0.068），但在旱季、饮食多样性低和年龄较大的宿主中系统性地更高。我们表明纵向剖面和大样本量对于量化微生物组遗传力至关重要，