Academics

Skin is the biggest human organ and is the most exposed to the external environment (Todar 2004). The exposure makes human skin home to a number of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and viruses (Byrd et al. 2018). All those microorganisms form microenvironments all over the human body and are part of the skin microflora. Human skin is an ecosystem consisting of microbial communities distributed in the range of niches defined by external physiology (Grice et al. 2009). Human skin can be categorized into three types of microenvironments: sebaceous, moist, and dry (Byrd et al. 2018). Altogether there are four bacterial phyla identified to reside on human skin: Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes (Byrd et al. 2018). Numerous findings on the human skin microbiome made it possible to look at the human body as a possible analogy for biogeographical patterns found in nature, and the rest of the phenomenon seen in the environment. As the ecosystems differ across the globe due to both biotic and abiotic factors so is human skin predicted to differ from human to human. As the biggest organ, the human skin is daily exposed to the use of synthetic and natural ingredients contained in soaps, gels, moisturizers, and a variety of cosmetic products. They act as external factors that influence a human microbiome to differ depending on products used, continuity of use, and functionality of the product. Therefore, species diversity and richness in microenvironments are both affected to a testable extent since the human skin and the biogeography of the environments are seen to be very similar (Datir et al. 2020). 

Read the full article here.