Yearly variation coupled with social interactions shape the skin microbiome in free-ranging rhesus macaques.

ABSTRACT: While skin microbes are known to mediate human health and disease, there has been minimal research on the interactions between skin microbiota, social behavior, and year-to-year effects in non-human primates-important animal models for translational biomedical research. To examine these relationships, we analyzed skin microbes from 78 rhesus macaques living on Cayo Santiago Island, Puerto Rico. We considered age, sex, and social group membership, and characterized social behavior by assessing dominance rank and patterns of grooming as compared to nonsocial behaviors. To measure the effects of a shifting environment, we sampled skin microbiota (based on sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA V4 region) and assessed weather across sampling periods between 2013 and 2015. We hypothesized that, firs

SUBMITTER: Roche CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10580906 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature