Fig. 2: Age-adjusted and age-stratified gut microbiome beta diversity in Ill and Not-Ill children across developmental timepoints.
From: Gut Prevotella stercorea associates with protection against infection in rural African children
Beta diversity was assessed at days 1 (D1), 15 (D15) and 85 (D85) using genus-level data, with models adjusted or stratified by age group. Individual stool samples per child represent biological replicates (n = 940 total). Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) of Bray–Curtis dissimilarities revealed significant compositional differences between Ill children at D1 (n = 340), D15 (n = 285) and D85 (n = 315) and Not-Ill peers (D1: n = 176; D15: n = 123; D85: n = 137) at each timepoint (age-adjusted two-sided PERMANOVA: D1, R² = 0.1071, FDR p = 0.002; D15, R² = 0.1252, FDR p = 0.002; D85, R² = 0.0802, FDR p = 0.002). Age stratification showed that this was primarily in the 1–2 year age group. Community dispersion, assessed by Kruskal–Wallis tests, was greater among Ill children at D85 (FDR p < 0.001) but not at earlier timepoints (D1: FDR p = 0.851; D15: FDR p = 0.583). Boxplots show medians, interquartile ranges (IQR), minima and maxima, with whiskers extending to 1.5 × IQR; points represent individual samples.
