Meeting Abstract
Here we present results from a comparative study characterizing the adult skin microbiome of five amphibian species sampled at one site in central Florida during spring/summer of 2016. Our objectives were to characterize variation in alpha and beta diversities of skin microbial communities a) among and within host amphibian species, and b) across time for microbiome samples collected from American bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbianus), which were sampled at three time points between early May and late June. The other four host species considered were the southern cricket frog (Acris gryllus), southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris), American green tree frog (Hyla cimerea), and southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenacephalus). We prepared 16S rRNA amplicon libraries from microbial DNA samples, extracted from skin swabs, using universal bacterial primers (515F/806R). Multiplexed libraries were sequenced in one Illumina MiSeq run and the resulting sequence reads were analyzed using QIIME to characterize microbial community composition and to calculate measures of microbiome richness and diversity. We discuss the results of our inter- and intraspecific comparisons in the context of host ecology and disease susceptibility.
