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 Staphylococcus
epidermidis), consistent with competitive exclusion induced by a
transition from sebaceous to moist environments. By exploiting this common
yet uniquely human practice, we show that skin piercings are not just
culturally significant but also represent ecosystem engineering on the
human body. The novel habitats and communities that skin piercing produce
may provide general insights into biological responses to environmental
disturbance with implications for both ecosystem and human health.