The Dynamics of Microbial Transfer and Persistence on Human Skin

dc.contributor.advisorBohannan, B. J. M.
dc.contributor.authorBateman, Ashley
dc.date.accessioned2017-09-06T21:48:22Z
dc.date.available2017-09-06T21:48:22Z
dc.date.issued2017-09-06
dc.description.abstractThe skin microbiome is a critical component of human health, however, little is understood about the daily dynamics of skin microbiome community assembly and the skin’s potential to acquire microorganisms from the external environment. I performed a series of microbial transfers using three skin habitat types (dry, moist, sebaceous) on human subject volunteers. Microbial communities were transferred to recipient skin using a sterile swab 1) from other skin sites on the same individual, 2) from other skin sites on a different individual, 3) and from two environmental donor sources (plant leaf surfaces and farm soil). With these experiments I was able to test for the presence of initial transfer effects and for the persistence of those effects over the time period sampled (2-, 4-, 8-, and 24-hours post-transfer). The sebaceous skin community was associated with the strongest initial effect of transfer and persistence on the moist recipient skin site, and to a lesser extent the dry skin site. The soil donor community when transferred to dry skin resulted in the strongest initial transfer effect and was persistent over 8- and even 24-hours post-transfer. These experiments are the first in scope and scale to directly demonstrate that dispersal from other human or environmental microbial communities are plausible drivers of community dynamics in the skin microbiome.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/22709
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-US
dc.subjectCommunity assemblyen_US
dc.subjectDispersalen_US
dc.subjectMicrobial ecologyen_US
dc.subjectSkin microbiomeen_US
dc.titleThe Dynamics of Microbial Transfer and Persistence on Human Skin
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of Biology
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.leveldoctoral
thesis.degree.namePh.D.

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