About

Andrew Moeller is an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. His research focuses on evolutionary biology, specifically on symbiosis and host-microbe relationships. He is interested in understanding how microbial lineages interact with multicellular eukaryotes, including vertebrates such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. His work explores questions related to coevolution, the genetic bases of host-microbial partnerships, and how microorganisms influence host adaptation and diversification. Dr. Moeller employs a combination of observational and experimental studies conducted both in the field and in the laboratory, applying new technologies and methods to investigate these complex biological interactions.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Evolutionary biology
• Computer Science
• Zoology
• Ecology
• Psychology
• Immunology
• Developmental psychology
• Telecommunications
• Neuroscience

Selected publications

• The role of the microbiome in the neurobiology of social behaviour

  Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2020 · 139 citations

  • Biology
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychology

  Microbes colonise all multicellular life, and the gut microbiome has been shown to influence a range of host physiological and behavioural phenotypes. One of the most intriguing and least understood of these influences lies in the domain of the microbiome's interactions with host social behaviour, with new evidence revealing that the gut microbiome makes important contributions to animal sociality. However, little is known about the biological processes through which the microbiome might influence host social behaviour. Here, we synthesise evidence of the gut microbiome's interactions with various aspects of host sociality, including sociability, social cognition, social stress, and autism. We discuss evidence of microbial associations with the most likely physiological mediators of animal social interaction. These include the structure and function of regions of the 'social' brain (the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and the hippocampus) and the regulation of 'social' signalling molecules (glucocorticoids including corticosterone and cortisol, sex hormones including testosterone, oestrogens, and progestogens, neuropeptide hormones such as oxytocin and arginine vasopressin, and monoamine neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine). We also discuss microbiome-associated host genetic and epigenetic processes relevant to social behaviour. We then review research on microbial interactions with olfaction in insects and mammals, which contribute to social signalling and communication. Following these discussions, we examine evidence of microbial associations with emotion and social behaviour in humans, focussing on psychobiotic studies, microbe-depression correlations, early human development, autism, and issues of statistical power, replication, and causality. We analyse how the putative physiological mediators of the microbiome-sociality connection may be investigated, and discuss issues relating to the interpretation of results. We also suggest that other candidate molecules should be studied, insofar as they exert effects on social behaviour and are known to interact with the microbiome. Finally, we consider different models of the sequence of microbial effects on host physiological development, and how these may contribute to host social behaviour.

  DOI

• Roles of the gut microbiota in the adaptive evolution of mammalian species

  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2020 · 178 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Zoology

  Every mammalian species harbours a gut microbiota, and variation in the gut microbiota within mammalian species can have profound effects on host phenotypes. In this review, we summarize recent evidence that gut microbiotas have influenced the course of mammalian adaptation and diversification. Associations with gut microbiotas have: (i) promoted the diversification of mammalian species by enabling dietary transitions onto difficult-to-digest carbon sources and toxic food items; (ii) shaped the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity in mammalian species through the amplification of signals from the external environment and from postnatal developmental processes; and (iii) generated selection for host mechanisms, including innate and adaptive immune mechanisms, to control the gut microbiota for the benefit of host fitness. The stability of specific gut microbiotas within host species lineages varies substantially across the mammalian phylogeny, and this variation may alter the ultimate evolutionary outcomes of relationships with gut microbiotas in different mammalian clades. In some mammalian species, including humans, relationships with host species-specific gut microbiotas appear to have led to the evolution of host dependence on the gut microbiota for certain functions. These studies implicate the gut microbiota as a significant environmental factor and selective agent shaping the adaptive evolution of mammalian diet, phenotypic plasticity, gastrointestinal morphology and immunity. This article is part of the theme issue 'The role of the microbiome in host evolution'.

  DOI

• The Effects of Temperature on Animal Gut Microbiomes

  Frontiers in Microbiology · 2020 · 318 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Ecology

  Temperature is a prominent abiotic environmental variable that drives the adaptive trajectories of animal lineages and structures the composition of animal communities. Global temperature regimes are expected to undergo rapid shifts in the next century, yet for many animal taxa we lack an understanding of the consequences of these predicted shifts for animal populations. In this review, we synthesize recent evidence that temperature variation shapes the composition and function of animal gut microbiomes, key regulators of host physiology, with potential consequences for host population responses to climate change. Several recent studies spanning a range of animal taxa, including Chordata, Arthropoda, and Mollusca, have reported repeatable associations between temperature and the community composition and function of the gut microbiome. In several cases, the same microbiome responses to temperature have been observed across distantly related animal taxa, suggesting the existence of conserved mechanisms underlying temperature-induced microbiome plasticity. Extreme temperatures can disrupt the stability of alpha-diversity within the gut microbiomes individual hosts and generate beta-diversity among microbiomes within host populations. Microbiome states resulting from extreme temperatures have been associated, and in some cases causally linked, with both beneficial and deleterious effects on host phenotypes. We propose routes by which temperature-induced changes in the gut microbiome may impact host fitness, including effects on colonization resistance in the gut, on host energy and nutrient assimilation, and on host life history traits. Cumulatively, available data indicate that disruption of the gut microbiome may be a mechanism by which changing temperatures will impact animal fitness in wild-living populations.

  DOI

• Microbial transmission in animal social networks and the social microbiome

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2020 · 245 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Biology
  • Evolutionary biology
  DOI

Recent grants

• The modes and genomics of gut bacterial specificity to host species

  NIH · $2.4M · 2020–2030

Frequent coauthors

• Daniel D. Sprockett

  Cornell University

  21 shared

• Martine Peeters

  21 shared

• Michael W. Nachman

  Integra (United States)

  18 shared

• Beatrice H. Hahn

  University of Pennsylvania

  17 shared

• Samantha L. Goldman

  Princeton University

  16 shared

• Elizabeth V. Lonsdorf

  Emory University

  15 shared

• Jon G. Sanders

  Cornell University

  15 shared

• Michael J. Sheehan

  Cornell University

  14 shared

Labs

• Moeller LabPI

Similar researchers at Princeton University

• Jonathan Cohenh-162
• Michael Straussh-149
• Thomas E. Shenkh-136
• Michael Levineh-131
• Romain Teyssierh-130