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The skin of an average human houses trillions of individual bacteria representing hundreds or even thousands of phylotypes. Most of these phylotypes or “species” (acknowledging that bacterial species definitions are vague), are not yet named, and are often difficult to cultivate so are known only based on their nucleotide sequence. Studies have begun to characterize consistent differences in the composition of bacterial taxa across the geography of our bodies, for example, between wet (e.g., armpit) and dry (e.g., forearm) habitats. It is still not clear, however, how the diversity in such habitats is structured and, in particular, what makes some phylotypes common and others rare. Commonness might be the result of historically contingent or even chance processes, in which common phylotypes might be expected to differ among individual humans or human populations in unpredictable ways. Alternatively, common phylotypes might be predictably common, because they are from lineages with adaptations that predispose them to predictable success in the environment in which they are common.
Use the interactive charts above to explore the dataset