Long-term study of microbial diversity on amphibian skin

Amphibians host diverse skin microbes that have a role in pathogen defense, but these skin communities could change over time and impact this function. Here, we monitored individual Eastern red-spotted newts (Notophthalmus viridescens; N=17) for two years in a field pond enclosure in Virginia, USA and assessed the effects of season and disturbance on skin bacterial community dynamics. We planned to sample the skin bacterial community and metabolite profiles of each newt every six weeks; we ultimately sampled eight individuals at least six times. We used 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to characterize the bacterial communities and HPLC-MS for metabolite profiling.