1. (A) Box-and-whisker plots illustrate the median, maximum, minimum, and first and third quartiles of the distribution of the number of observed OTUs and the Shannon diversity index for Komodo dragon fecal (n = 34), saliva (n = 25), and skin (n = 48) microbial communities.
(A) Box-and-whisker plots illustrate the median, maximum, minimum, and first and third quartiles of the distribution of the number of observed OTUs and the Shannon diversity index for Komodo dragon fecal (n = 34), saliva (n = 25), and skin (n = 48) microbial communities. A nonparametric t test with Monte Carlo permutations was used to calculate significant differences in diversity between groups. ns, not significant. (B) An unweighted UniFrac-based PCoA plot reveals that fecal microbial communities cluster separately from skin and saliva microbial communities, which are more similar to each other. Principal components 1 to 3 (PC1 to PC3) are shown. (C) Pie charts overlaid onto a Komodo dragon picture illustrate the mean relative abundances of phyla present in Komodo dragon saliva (n = 25), skin (n = 34), and feces (n = 48).
Embriette R. Hyde et al. mSystems 2016; doi: /mSystems