Fig. 1

Overview of the study and defining core vaginal microbiome in the VaMHP cohort. a 6755 individuals aged 19–64 years were recruited. Vaginal swabs with 81 time-matched variables from eight categories were collected. Wedge sizes in the ring chart reflect the proportion of collected variables in each category. b The phylogenetic tree constructed by the 274 representative sequences used in the study. The transparency of colors in the inner heatmap and the heights of bars in the outer ring correspond to the relative abundance of ASVs. The colors of bars in the outer ring represent the Phylum classification of microbes. The abundance of ASVs was transformed using a log₂(count+1) function. c Relative abundances of top 13 taxa across all the individuals’ samples. Each sample is represented by one stacked bar. The bars for all samples were presented in the ascending order of relative abundance of Lactobacillus crispatus. “Others” refers to the remaining taxa. d The relative abundances of four core species that were observed in over 90% of the sampled participants. The abundances of the species were transformed by log₂(count+1). e–h Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) plots based on Bray–Curtis distance. Each point represents a sample and is colored according to the relative abundance of specific bacterial taxa