Trillions Of Organisms Are Living On Your Skin - A Biologist Explains What They’re Doing
Biologists estimate that trillions of microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, inhabit the human skin as a permanent, beneficial community. These organisms are not contaminants but are specialized to survive in specific skin habitats like oily or moist areas.
Why it matters
Understanding the human microbiome is essential for advancements in dermatology and overall health science.
Science Trillions Of Organisms Are Living On Your Skin — A Biologist Explains What They’re Doing By Scott Travers ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Follow Author Aug 20, 2026, 08:00am EDT A dense community of bacteria, fungi and mites lives on the human body full time, and most of it works in your favor. getty Biologists estimate that human skin carries on the order of a trillion bacterial cells at any given moment — a figure that a 2016 study published in PLOS Biology traces to an earlier body-wide bacterial census. That figure excludes the fungi, the microscopic mites and the viruses that infect the bacteria themselves. Estimates vary depending on how the sampling is done, since this is a genuinely difficult thing to measure, but the credible ranges all sit in the trillions.
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