Intraspecific Variation in the Skin-Associated Microbiome of a Terrestrial Salamander.

ABSTRACT: Resident microbial communities living on amphibian skin can have significant effects on host health, yet the basic ecology of the host-microbiome relationship of many amphibian taxa is poorly understood. We characterized intraspecific variation in the skin microbiome of the salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii xanthoptica, a subspecies composed of four genetically distinct populations distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, USA. We found that salamanders from four geographically and genetically isolated populations harbor similar skin microbial communities, which are dominated by a common core set of bacterial taxa. Additionally, within a population, the skin microbiome does not appear to differ significantly between salamanders of diff

SUBMITTER: Prado-Irwin SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5909955 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature