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Paper short abstract

Human gut microbiomes of semi-nomadic yak herders in Bhutan are shaped by the herders’ shifting environments, dwellings, and activities, entangled in an arrangement of heterogeneous interdependencies, which contribute to diverse gut microbiomes strengthening resilience in more-than-human health.

Paper long abstract

The semi-nomadic yak herders of Laya in Northern Bhutan seasonally migrate with their yaks and horses across different altitudes and socio-ecological environments, being entangled with shifting food-related activities and human-animal interactions, affecting eating habits and microbial circulations. As food is the predominant element in shaping gut microbiomes through the socio-ecologically patterned nourishment of microbes, ingestion of toxins, and circulation of microbes into and out of the human body, we delve into the arrangement of different aspects related to food and the ways in which this more-than-food arrangement enables the entanglement of the socio-ecological environment with the human gut ecology, illustrating a sheer microbiosocial interdependency. Drawing upon anthropological fieldwork among this Himalyan community and nutritional surveys, and sampling and sequencing of stool samples in the EATWELL project, I elicit the socio-culturally and ecologically patterned circulations and inter-actions of humans, animals, microbes, foods, and horses across socio-ecological environments and their influences on the human gut microbiomes of the semi-nomadic yak herders. I also elicit how seasonal variations in migratory patterns and food-related practices shape these inter-actions, affecting the diversity and resilience of the human microbiome and shaping human health as interdependent with other-than-human health, in short affecting more-than-human health. The study of the malleability of the human gut microbiome as entangled with its shifting microbiosocial environments holds lessons for understanding current transformations in food systems and environments and how they affect more-than-human health, as well as for how to strengthen more-than-human health resilience through gut microbiomes in this world of interdependence.