Environmental and Anthropogenic Factors Shape the Skin Bacterial Communities of a Semi-Arid Amphibian Species

Abstract

The amphibian skin microbiome is important in maintaining host health, but is vulnerable to perturbation from changes in biotic and abiotic conditions. Anthropogenic habitat disturbance and emerging infectious diseases are both potential disrupters of the skin microbiome, in addition to being major drivers of amphibian decline globally. We investigated how host environment (hydrology, habitat disturbance), pathogen presence, and host biology (life stage) impact the skin microbiome of wild Dhofar toads (Duttaphrynus dhufarensis) in Oman. We detected ranavirus (but not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) across all sampling sites, constituting the first report of this pathogen in Oman, with reduced prevalence in disturbed sites. We show that skin microbiome beta diversity is driven by host life stage, water source, and habitat disturbance, but not ranavirus infection. Finally, although trends in bacterial diversity and differential abundance were evident in disturbed versus undisturbed sites, bacterial co-occurrence patterns determined through network analyses revealed high site specificity. Our results therefore provide support for amphibian skin microbiome diversity and taxa abundance being associated with habitat disturbance, with bacterial co-occurrence (and likely broader aspects of microbial community ecology) being largely site specific.

Keywords: Amphibian; Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; Habitat disturbance; Ranavirus; Skin microbiome; Toad.

Fig. 1

A Map of sites. Skin bacterial beta diversity colured by B water source and C disturbance

Fig. 2

A Shared skin bacterial ASVs between life stages and environment B bacterial Shannon diversity in adults and larvae C PCA of bacterial beta diversity based on host life stage