Skin microbiomes of wild and captive cane toads (Rhinella marina) in Middle Point, NT, Australia, 2021-2023

In mid-2021, wild toads from Middle Point, NT, Australia were swabbed to describe their skin bacterial microbiomes and brought into captivity, held in outdoor semi-natural enclosures with local soil. Skin bacterial communities from those toads were periodically sampled until mid-2023. During the swabbing time points, additional wild toads (Middle Point, NT) were swabbed, enabling detection of temporal/seasonal patterns in wild and captive populations and determination of the extent that communities on captive toads represent those on wild toads.Skin bacterial samples were collected by first rinsing off transient bacteria with 100 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 and refrigerated until extraction with the Norgen Microbiome 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.