Factors Influencing Bacterial and Fungal Skin Communities of Montane Salamanders of Central Mexico.

Host microbial communities are increasingly seen as an important component of host health. In amphibians, the first land vertebrates that are threatened by a fungal skin disease globally, our understanding of the factors influencing the microbiome of amphibian skin remains incomplete because recent studies have focused almost exclusively on bacteria, and little information exists on fungal communities associated with wild amphibian species. In this study, we describe the effects of host phylogeny, climate, geographic distance, and infection with a fungal pathogen on the composition and structure of bacterial and fungal communities in seven tropical salamander species that occur in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt of Central Mexico.