Temporal changes in cutaneous bacterial communities of terrestrial- and aquatic-phase newts (Amphibia)

Animal-associated bacterial communities play essential roles for their host's ecology, physiology and health. Temporal dynamics of these communities are poorly understood, but might be of high relevance for amphibians with a well-expressed biphasic biology of adults where the structure of their skin changes drastically between the aquatic and terrestrial phases. Here, we investigated the temporal dynamics of cutaneous bacterial communities of Lissotriton boscai and Triturus marmoratus by monthly sampling populations from a pond and surrounding terrestrial habitats near A Coruña, Spain. These communities were characterized by 16S rRNA gene amplicons from DNA isolated from skin swabs. Newt bacterial communities displayed variation at three levels: between larvae and aquatic adults, between adult life phases (terrestrial versus aquatic), and temporally within life phases. The skin bacterial communities tended to differ to a lesser extent temporally and between larvae and adults, and more strongly between life phases. Larvae had a higher proportion of reads associated with antifungal taxa compared with adults, while no differences were found among adult life phases. Terrestrial specimens exhibited the highest community diversity. The regular transitions of adult newts between aquatic and terrestrial environments might contribute to the diversity of their skin microbiota and could increase disease resistance.