The microbiome is the community of microorganisms—mostly bacteria but also fungi and archaea—that live and grow in and on our bodies. And we carry many, many microbial passengers.
To understand microbiome dynamics, it’s important to identify not only which microbial species are present in a given sample, but also to determine their growth rates.
To assess how microbial species are derived and their importance, a team led by JAX Assistant Professor Julia Oh took a hard look at the dynamics of strain diversity for a specific bacterium in human skin, Staphylococcus (S.) epidermidis.