Quantcast
ZME Science
  • CoronavirusNEW
  • News
  • Environment
    • Climate
    • Animals
    • Renewable Energy
    • Eco tips
    • Environmental Issues
    • Green Living
  • Health
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Anatomy
    • Diseases
    • Genetics
    • Mind & Brain
    • Nutrition
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
    • Feature Post
    • Art
    • Great Pics
    • Design
    • Fossil Friday
    • AstroPicture
    • GeoPicture
    • Did you know?
    • Offbeat
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Health & Medicine

Microbial fauna in your belly button is like a ‘tropical forest’

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
November 15, 2012
in Health & Medicine

According to researchers, thousands and thousands of bacteria types (some new to science) can be found in your belly button – but don’t worry: “it’s quite beautiful”, they say.

A pristine environment

The belly button is one of the microbial habitats closest to us, yet it remains relatively unexplored. Rob Dunn and his team analyzed bacteria and archaea from the belly buttons of humans from two different populations; they aren’t your average navel gazers – they’re professional navel gazers, and they’re doing it all… for science!

The whole thing started about two years ago, when an undergrad sampled a colleague’s belly button bacteria to send it to him as a Christmas card. Biologists, the quirky people that they are, quickly picked up on this idea.

The basic idea is that the belly button is one of the least scrubbed places of the human body, making it one of the most pristine bacterial environments humans harbor – which could kind of explain why some people are totally grossed out by navels.

Get more science news like this...

Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

Like a rainforest

The team analyzed 60 belly buttons, finding a total of 2,368 bacterial species, 1,458 of which may be new to science. Like with most people, some belly button harbored more species, some less, but most had 67 species. Ninety-two percent of the bacteria types showed up on fewer than 10 percent of subjects – in fact, most of the time, they appeared in only one subject, which is pretty significant in itself.

The subjects were varied; one science writer, for example, harbored a species of bacteria only found in Japan – a place he or his family never visited. Another subject, who hadn’t washed for years, hosted two species of so-called extremophile bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents.

Not even a single strain appeared on all subjects, but 8 were found in over 70 percent of subjects; and when one of the species found often was present, others followed in great numbers.

“That makes the belly button a lot like rain forests,” Dunn said. In any given forest, he explained, the spectrum of flora might vary, but an ecologist can count on a certain few dominant tree types. “The idea that some aspects of our bodies are like a rain forest—to me it’s quite beautiful,” he added. “And it makes sense to me as an ecologist. I understand what steps to take next; I can see how that works.”

Navigating the belly button

A belly button.

But finding the bacteria is only the first step. The second step is finding out which types typically call the human body home, why they do this, and what the differences mean.

“We’re all like the guys before Darwin who went out and brought this stuff on the ship and said, Check out this bird that’s totally weird—this has got to be important! “They were still so far from understanding the big picture,” Dunn said. “That’s where we are.”

Hoping to find out answers to these questions, Dunn and his team set out, of course, to analyze more belly buttons! Pretty soon, they’ll have 10 times more data by analyzing 600 navels, and things will probably become significantly clearer then.

Research was published in PLoS ONE

Tags: bacteriabelly buttonbiodiversitymicrobial fauna
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

Follow ZME on social media

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Coronavirus
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Coronavirus
  • News
  • Environment
    • Climate
    • Animals
    • Renewable Energy
    • Eco tips
    • Environmental Issues
    • Green Living
  • Health
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Anatomy
    • Diseases
    • Genetics
    • Mind & Brain
    • Nutrition
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
    • Feature Post
    • Art
    • Great Pics
    • Design
    • Fossil Friday
    • AstroPicture
    • GeoPicture
    • Did you know?
    • Offbeat
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.