Sheep skin microbiome

The skin is inhabited by bacteria, fungi and viruses, which altogether are referred to as the skin microbiome. There is only a very limited number of studies on the skin microbiome of sheep. Here, we expanded on previous studies on the sheep skin bacterial composition by using metabarcoding for a more detailed representation. The effect of different breeds, body sites and geographical locations on composition and diversity of the sheep skin microbiome were evaluated. Two hundred sixty-seven samples were taken from 89 adult female sheep from nine different Swiss farms, where three most abundant breeds in Switzerland were sampled: black and brown mountain sheep, brown headed meat sheep and white alpine sheep. Skin bacterial samples from belly, left ear and left leg were taken. Amplicon metabarcoding of 16S rRNA gene V3V4 hypervariable regions was performed.