Skin microbiomes of Gehyra spp. and Heteronotia binoei across sites and seasons in NT, Australia

We hand-captured geckos (seven species) along a climatic/latitudinal (4 degrees) gradient in the Northern Territory, Australia in dry season 2022 and wet season 2023 to describe host-associated skin bacteria and discover species, site, and seasonal patterns on these reptiles. They were captured at night and sampled that night or the following day after being held in clean, dry, fabric bags. Skin bacterial samples were collected by first rinsing off transient bacteria with 75 mL high-pure water and then swabbing the entire body excluding the face and cloaca with a Copan flocked swab. Samples were stored in 300uL Zymo DNA/RNA shield on ice in the field and then frozen at -20C before extraction with the Qiagen DNeasy Blood & Tissue Kit. Fastq files are from Illumina MiSeq 2x250bp paired-end sequencing of the bacterial V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene using the EMP 515F/806R primers.