16S rRNA characterization of coral reef fish skin microbiomes
Disentangling the drivers structuring microbiomes can help predict organisms' responses to rapid environmental change. However, despite microbial communities being important for both host and environmental health, large gaps remain in our understanding of how host-associated microbiomes are structured and respond to different stimuli, especially in marine environments. Here, we leverage seasonal upwelling in Panama's Tropical Eastern Pacific to test how abrupt environmental changes linked to seasonal upwelling influence the diversity and composition of coral reef fish skin microbiomes in ten species spanning four trophic groups.   Fish were collected from 2 island archipelagos in the Tropical Eastern Pacific: Las Perlas & Coiba. Sampling was done during both upwelling & non-upwelling seasons (collections done 2021-22). Skin swabs = 9 per species/season/region. (Paired Gut samples = 8 per species, were also collected, but will be part of a separate project, stay tuned...) Control swabs (swabs exposed to air in field) were collected at each site and season. Swabs were stored in liquid nitrogen for transport from the field to lab, then kept at -80ºC. Samples were extracted with the ZymoBIOMICS 96 well DNA kit, the 16S V4 region amplified with primers 515F and 806R, and sequenced with an Illumina MiSeq.