Data for: Wild microbiomes of striped plateau lizards vary with sex, body size, and reproductive season

Long-term natural studies are valuable for examining the effects of host
demographics and environmental factors on animal microbiomes, and how
those effects interact and shift over time. We examined how the cloacal
microbiome of Sceloporus virgatus (the striped plateau lizard) varies
under natural conditions in southeastern Arizona, USA, in a multi-year
study. Cloacal swabs were collected from wild-caught lizards across their
entire active season over three years. Analyses of 16S rRNA data generated
on the Illumina platform revealed cloacal microbiomes of S. virgatus vary
as a function of sex, season, size, and reproductive state, and do so
independently of one another. Briefly, microbial diversity was higher in
females than in males, increased with body size, was lowest in both sexes
during the reproductive season, and was lowest in females when they were
vitellogenic. It was not significantly affected by hibernation. This study
highlights the importance of long term, wide scale microbiome studies for
capturing accurate perspectives on microbiome diversity and composition in
a given species. It also serves as a warning for comparisons of
microbiomes across species, as each may be under a different suite of
selective pressures from external or innate factors, which may differ in a
species-specific manner.