Yearly variation coupled with social interactions shape the skin microbiome in free-ranging rhesus macaquesOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
Read MoreWhat was studied?
Researchers examined skin microbiota in 78 free-ranging rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago Island, Puerto Rico, testing whether social behavior (grooming, dominance rank, group membership) or yearly environmental change shaped skin microbial composition.
How was it studied?
The team sequenced the 16S rRNA V4 region from skin swabs collected across sampling periods between 2013 and 2015, and paired this with records of age, sex, social group, dominance rank, grooming rates, and weather conditions.
What did they find?
Social groups differed at the phylum level in the core microbiome, and total grooming rates correlated with alpha diversity, but rank and other nonsocial behaviors showed no association. Alpha and beta diversity and specific taxa abundance differed markedly between the two yearly sampling periods.
Why it matters
Contrary to expectation, yearly environmental change was a stronger driver of skin microbiome composition than social contact among groomers, offering a translational parallel for understanding environmental versus social influences on the human skin microbiome.