Fig. 5: Seasonal fluctuation of Bacillota/Bacteroidota ratio in the study groups without any change in the total bacterial load and bacterial diversity over the three seasons, analysed by HITChip and qPCR assays.

A The box and whisker plots with individual data point distribution show the changes in the Bacillota/Bacteroidota ratio between the four diet groups (A–D) and three seasons (S1, S2, S3), analysed by two different methods (HITChip and qPCR assays). The diet groups are Group-A: not consumed Dahi and Hawaijar (n = 58), Group-B: consumed Dahi and Hawaijar (n = 54), Group-C: consumed Hawaijar, not Dahi (n = 65), and Group-D: consumed Dahi, not Hawaijar (n = 37), and three seasons are S1- Summer (n = 76), S2- Autumn (n = 70), S3-Winter (n = 68). The box and whisker plots display median (middle line), box ranges from 25 to 75 percentile with Tukey whisker lower than 1.5 IQR. The scatter plot shows the change in the Bacillota/Bacteroidota ratio due to both the seasons and diet effects together (Diet x Season). The Bacillota/Bacteroidota ratio is log10 (x_i+1) transformed for effective visualisation in the scatter plot. The significant changes between the diet groups and seasons were calculated by a two-sided Wilcoxon test, and Bonferroni corrected and indicated the p values in the figure panels. B, C The Box and whisker plots show no seasonal changes in the total bacterial load (B) and bacterial diversity (C) in the Indian study population. The total bacterial load (Total bacteria-specific qPCR assay) and the bacterial diversity (Shannon diversity index calculated from the HITChip probe profile) show no change between the three-time intervals. The box and whisker plots display median (middle line), box ranges from 25 to 75 percentile with Tukey whisker lower than 1.5 IQR, and no statistical significance between the seasons (ANOVA). The colour keys of the seasons are purple for summer (S1), orange-red for autumn (S2), and green for winter (S3). The Source data are provided as a Source Data file.