Data for: Community assembly of the human piercing microbiome

Predicting how biological communities respond to disturbance requires understanding the forces that govern their assembly. We propose using human skin piercings as a model system for studying community assembly after rapid environmental change. Local skin sterilization provides a ‘clean slate’ within the novel ecological niche created by the piercing. Stochastic assembly processes can dominate skin microbiomes due to the influence of environmental exposure on local dispersal, but deterministic processes might play a greater role within occluded skin piercings if piercing habitats impose strong selection pressures on colonizing species. Here we explore the human ear-piercing microbiome and demonstrate that community assembly is predominantly stochastic but becomes significantly more deterministic with time, producing increasingly diverse and ecologically complex communities. We also observed changes in two dominant and medically relevant antagonists (Cutibacterium acnes and Staphylococcu..., Human research ethics approval: Protocols for study participant recruitment, data security, sample collection, and associated procedures were approved by the McGill University Research Ethics Board Office (REB-1 #70-0617).
Sample collection: From October 2019 to March 2020, we recruited 28 individuals who were receiving earlobe piercings at Tattoo Lounge in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and received their written, informed consent to participate in the study. Following standard ear-piercing protocols, we sterilized the ear lobe skin area to be pierced with a benzalkonium chloride antiseptic towelette (Jedmon Products) immediately before piercing. We pierced earlobes using a sterilized beveled hollow needle (Ruthless/Precision) and then inserted a 5/16” surgical steel grade (316L) piercing labret stud composed of chromium, nickel, and molybdenum. Both needle and stud were dipped in a water-based lubricant jelly (Personelle, Jean Coutu) to minimize friction and cleaned off after using a cotton..., , # Community assembly of the human piercing microbiome

For further details on softwares/platforms used, please see:
[QIIME2](https://qiime2.org/)
*[decontam](https://benjjneb.github.io/decontam/vignettes/decontam_intro.html/)*
[iCAMP](https://github.com/DaliangNing/iCAMP1/)
[iNAP](https://inap.denglab.org.cn/root/login?redirect=%2F/)
[Cytoscape](https://cytoscape.org/)
[MicrobiomeAnalyst](https://www.microbiomeanalyst.ca/)

## Description of the data and file structure

### QIIME2

**QIIME2.bash:** QIIME2 commands for producing ASV table from raw sequencing data.
**manifest1.csv/manifest2.csv:** QIIME2 manifest files of forward/reverse read identities for joining paired-end reads from sequencing batches 1 & 2.
**metadata_full.tsv:** QIIME2 metadata.
**NB_V1-V3_198bp_silva_classifier.qza:** QIIME2 data file containing Naïve Bayes classifier of amplicon (198 bp of V1-V3 16S rRNA) extracted from the SILVA 138 database.
**relfq_pierced.qza/relfq_unpierced.qza:** QIIME2 data files contai...