A healthy dietary pattern is associated with microbiota diversity in recently diagnosed bipolar patients: The Bipolar Netherlands Cohort (BINCO) study.

BACKGROUND: Diet largely impacts the gut microbiota, and may affect mental and somatic health via the gut-brain axis. As such, the relationship between diet and the microbiota in Bipolar Disorder (BD) could be of importance, but has not been studied before. The aim was therefore to assess whether dietary quality is associated with the gut microbiota diversity in patients with recently diagnosed BD, and whether changes occur in dietary quality and microbiota diversity during their first year of treatment. METHODS: Seventy recently (<1 year) diagnosed patients with BD were included in the "Bipolar Netherlands Cohort" (BINCO), and a total of 45 participants were assessed after one year. A 203-item Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) data yielded the Dutch Healthy index (DHD-15), and the microbiota composition and diversity of fecal samples were characterized by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Associations and changes over time were analyzed using multivariate regression analyses and t-tests for paired samples. RESULTS: Included patients had a mean age of 34.9 years (SD ± 11.2), and 58.6 % was female. Alpha diversity (Shannon diversity index), richness (Chao1 index) and evenness (Pielou's Evenness Index) were positively associated with the DHD-15 total score, after adjustment for sex, age and educational level (beta = 0.55; P < 0.001, beta = 0.39; P = 0.024, beta = 0.54; P = 0.001 respectively). The positive correlations were largely driven by the combined positive effect of fish, beans, fruits and nuts, and inverse correlations with alcohol and processed meats. No significant changes were found in DHD-15 total score, nor in microbiota diversity, richness and evenness indexes during one year follow-up and regular treatment. CONCLUSION: A healthy and varied diet is associated with the diversity of the microbiota in BD patients. Its potential consequences for maintaining mood stability and overall health should be studied further.

Effective population size, reproductive success and sperm precedence in the butterfly, Bicyclus anynana, in captivity.

A pedigree approach is used to estimate the effective population size yn two population cages of the butterfly, Bicyclus anynana. Each cage was founded with 54 individually marked adults of each sex. Matings were recorded over a 3-day period. Eggs were then collected from each female over a similar period before the numbers of hatching larvae were counted to assess progeny number. The males showed a higher variance in reproductive success than the females. Since about one-quarter of all females mated more than once, we also examined the pattern of sperm precedence using molecular markers or, in separate crossing experiments, wing pattern mutants. Both instances of complete first and last male sperm precedence, as well as of sperm mixing, were found. In some crosses a 'leakiness' was found in which some of the early eggs laid by a female were fertilized by a male partner which was subsequently completely unsuccessful. However, the estimates of effective population size were largely unaffected by the pattern of sperm precedence. Estimates for Ne : N in each cage were close to 0.60. The possibility of obtaining comparable estimates in selected natural populations of butterflies is discussed.