Significant changes in the skin microbiome mediated by the sport of roller derby

Background/Question/Methods

Diverse bacterial communities live on and in human skin. These complex communities vary by skin location on the body, over time, between individuals, and between geographic regions. Culture-based studies have shown that human to human and human to surface contact mediates the dispersal of pathogens, yet little is currently known about the drivers of bacterial community assembly patterns on human skin. We hypothesized that participation in a sport involving skin to skin contact would result in detectable shifts in skin bacterial communities.

Results/Conclusions

We conducted a study during a flat track roller derby tournament, and found that teammates shared distinct skin microbial communities before and after playing against another team (PERMANOVA p<0.001, both before and after bouting), but that opposing teams' bacterial communities converged during the course of a roller derby bout (beta-dispersion ANOVA p<0.001). Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the human skin microbiome shifts during activities involving human to human contact, and that contact sports provide an ideal setting in which to evaluate dispersal of microorganisms between people.