Similar bacterial communities on healthy and injured skin of black tip reef sharks

Abstract

The conserved bacterial community composition of healthy and injured shark skin samples suggests absence of severe bacterial infections or substantial pathogen propagation upon skin insult. While a mild bacterial infection may have gone undetected, the overall conserved bacterial community implies that bacterial function(s) may be maintained in injured skin. At present, the contribution of bacteria, besides intrinsic animal host factors, to counter skin infection and support rapid wound healing in sharks are unknown. This represents clear knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future work, e.g. by screening for antimicrobial properties of skin-associated bacterial isolates.