Figure 4
Diversity of the interdigital skin microbiota is temporally associated with footrot. (a) Boxplots of Inverse Simpson index in samples from all sheep by foot status. (b) Effects of foot status on square root transformed Inverse Simpson index as quantified by linear mixed-effects models. Centres indicate estimated fixed effects with error bars showing 95% confidence intervals. The foot status category used as the reference category in each model is shown above each plot. H = healthy foot of healthy sheep; HD = healthy foot of diseased sheep; D = diseased foot: before 2 + = ≥ 2 weeks before footrot episode; before 1 = 1 week before footrot episode; during = during any footrot episode in that foot; after 1 = 1 week after footrot episode, after 2 + = ≥ 2 weeks after footrot episode. Number of samples (n) = 603.
