What is it about?
Human activities are rapidly changing the environments that wildlife live in and depend on, and these changes can also reshape the communities of microbes that live with animals. In this article, we explore how factors such as pollution, habitat change, altered interactions among species, and increased contact with humans can affect wildlife microbiomes. These shifts may influence animal health, disease risk, and the movement of microbes and antimicrobial resistance across species.
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Photo by Martijn Vonk on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Wildlife are increasingly exposed to rapid human-driven environmental change, yet we still know relatively little about how these pressures affect the microbes they depend on. Understanding these changes could help reveal overlooked consequences of human activity for wildlife health, disease dynamics, conservation, and the movement of microbes and antimicrobial resistance among animals, humans, and the environment.
Perspectives
This article grew out of my interest in how human-driven environmental change can affect wildlife in subtle, difficult-to-observe ways, including through the movement of human-associated microbes into wildlife populations. Microbiomes are increasingly recognized as being closely tied to health, yet they are rarely considered in conservation or environmental change research. I hope this work encourages more attention to the microbiome as part of the broader biological response to human activity and helps connect research across ecology, microbiology, conservation, and One Health.
Dr Katherine Lagerstrom
Princeton University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: How do anthropogenic changes affect wildlife microbiomes?, PLoS Biology, August 2026, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003939.
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