Biology subjects

Abdill, R. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Abdill, R. J..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Distinct trajectories of urbanization shape the human gut microbiome across South Asia

Human gut microbiomes respond to lifestyle transitions, yet the extent to which these responses are conserved across spatio-cultural contexts remains undercharacterized. We present the South Asian MicroBiome ARray (SAMBAR), a population-scale 16S gut microbiome study of 575 adults from ten geographically and socio-culturally diverse South Asian communities. Each community was sampled in ancestral villages and urban centers, enabling controlled comparisons of geography and lifestyle. Relative to global cohorts, SAMBAR microbiomes occupy a distinct compositional space with stronger correlation to geography and community membership than lifestyle. Although urbanization is consistently associated with increased abundance of disease-linked taxa, microbiome responses to lifestyle transitions are largely community-driven, including the acquisition of wheat- and dairying-associated microbial modules in some communities that may facilitate non-genetic adaptation to lactase non-persistence. Microbiome responses to urbanization are heterogeneous even at regional scales, reflecting local culture and geography and underscoring the need for community-specific investigations of health impacts.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2023

Integration of 168,000 samples reveals global patterns of the human gut microbiome

Understanding the factors that shape variation in the human microbiome is a major goal of research in biology. While other genomics fields have used large, pre-compiled compendia to extract systematic insights requiring otherwise impractical sample sizes, there has been no comparable resource for the 16S rRNA sequencing data commonly used to quantify microbiome composition. To help close this gap, we have assembled a set of 168,484 publicly available human gut microbiome samples, processed with a single pipeline and combined into the largest unified microbiome dataset to date. We use this resource, which is freely available at microbiomap.org, to shed light on global variation in the human gut microbiome. We find that Firmicutes, particularly Bacilli and Clostridia, are almost universally present in the human gut. At the same time, the relative abundance of the 65 most common microbial genera differ between at least two world regions. We also show that gut microbiomes in undersampled world regions, such as Central and Southern Asia, differ significantly from the more thoroughly characterized microbiomes of Europe and Northern America. Moreover, humans in these overlooked regions likely harbor hundreds of taxa that have not yet been discovered due to this undersampling, highlighting the need for diversity in microbiome studies. We anticipate that this new compendium can serve the community and enable advanced applied and methodological research.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2021

Public human microbiome data dominated by highly developed countries

The importance of sampling from globally representative populations has been well established in human genomics. In human microbiome research, however, we lack a full understanding of the global distribution of sampling in research studies. This information is crucial to better understand global patterns of microbiome-associated diseases and to extend the health benefits of this research to all populations. Here, we analyze the country of origin of all 444,829 human microbiome samples that have been collected to date and are available from the worlds three largest genomic data repositories, including the Sequence Read Archive (SRA). We show that more than 71% of publicly available human microbiome samples with a known origin come from Europe, the United States, and Canada, including 46.8% from the United States alone, despite the country representing only 4.3% of the global population. We also find that central and southern Asia is the most underrepresented region: Countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh account for more than a quarter of the world population but make up only 1.8 percent of human microbiome samples. These results demonstrate a critical need to ensure more global representation of participants in microbiome studies.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2021

BiomeHorizon: visualizing microbiome time series data in R

SummaryA key aspect of microbiome research is analysis of longitudinal dynamics using time series data. A method to visualize both the proportional and absolute change in the abundance of multiple taxa across multiple subjects over time is needed. We developed BiomeHorizon, an open-source R package that visualizes longitudinal compositional microbiome data using horizon plots. Availability and ImplementationBiomeHorizon is available at https://github.com/blekhmanlab/biomehorizon/ and released under the MIT license. A guide with step-by-step instructions for using the package is provided at https://blekhmanlab.github.io/biomehorizon/. The guide also provides code to reproduce all plots in this manuscript. Contactlgrienei@umn.edu, blekhman@umn.edu, iafink@uchicago.edu Supplementary informationNone

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

International authorship and collaboration in bioRxiv preprints

As preprints become integrated into conventional avenues of scientific communication, its critical to understand who is included and who is not. However, little is known about which countries are participating or how they collaborate with each other. Here, we present an analysis of all 67,885 preprints posted on bioRxiv (through 2019) using the first comprehensive dataset of country-level preprint author affiliations. We find the plurality of preprints (39%) come from the United States, and that countries such as the U.S. and U.K. are overrepresented on bioRxiv relative to their overall scientific output, while countries including China, Russia, and Turkey show lower bioRxiv adoption. We describe a set of "contributor countries" including Uganda, Croatia and Thailand that appear almost exclusively as non-senior authors on international collaborations. Lastly, we find multiple journals that publish a disproportionate number of preprints from some countries, a dynamic that almost always benefits manuscripts from the U.S.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2019

Tracking the popularity and outcomes of all bioRxiv preprints

Researchers in the life sciences are posting their work to preprint servers at an unprecedented and increasing rate, sharing papers online before (or instead of) publication in peer-reviewed journals. Though the popularity and practical benefits of preprints are driving policy changes at journals and funding organizations, there is little bibliometric data available to measure trends in their usage. Here, we collected and analyzed data on all 37,648 preprints that were uploaded to bioRxiv.org, the largest biology-focused preprint server, in its first five years. We find that preprints on bioRxiv are being read more than ever before (1.1 million downloads in October 2018 alone) and that the rate of preprints being posted has increased to a recent high of more than 2,100 per month. We also find that two-thirds of bioRxiv preprints posted in 2016 or earlier were later published in peer-reviewed journals, and that the majority of published preprints appeared in a journal less than six months after being posted. We evaluate which journals have published the most preprints, and find that preprints with more downloads are likely to be published in journals with a higher impact factor. Lastly, we developed Rxivist.org, a website for downloading and interacting programmatically with indexed metadata on bioRxiv preprints.

scientific communication and education↗