Skin bacterial diversity is higher on lizards than sympatric frogs in tropical Australia.

ABSTRACT: Animal skin acts as a barrier between the organism and its environment and provides the first line of defense against invading pathogens. Thus, skin surfaces harbor communities of microbes that are interacting with both the host and its environment. Amphibian skin bacteria form distinct communities closely tied to their host species, but few studies have compared bacterial communities between amphibians and other, non-amphibian sympatric animals. Notably, skin microbes on reptiles have gained little attention. We used next-generation sequencing technology to describe bacterial communities on the skin of three lizard species and compared them to bacteria on six cohabiting frog species in the Northern Territory of Australia. We found bacterial communities had higher richness and diversity on

SUBMITTER: Weitzman CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6240339 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature