Fig. 2: Population variation in resistome composition by age and income groups, and gender.

a The top panel shows the five most abundant antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) classes across gender and income groups (HIC: n = 5544; LMIC: n = 2611). b Women and men have a similar resistome composition across the different age and income groups (men: blue, women: red). Gender explains only a relatively small, albeit significant, fraction of the overall variation in resistome composition (0.28%; p < 0.001). Principal Coordinates Analysis ordination (PCoA) illustrates the dissimilarity between samples in terms of their overall resistome composition, summarized along the two principal axes (PC1-2; N = 8590 samples with age and gender information, see Supplementary Table 11 for sample sizes; Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index) that explain 14.95% and 10.34% of the overall population-level variation, respectively. The ordination includes all samples, with their distribution along the axes displayed separately for each age-income subgroup. HIC high-income countries, LMIC low- and middle-income countries. For definitions of the age categories, see “Methods”.