Fig. 3

Dominant pathogens and loss of site specificity in PICU samples. a Proportion of overall samples in which more than 50% of sequencing reads are derived from a single dominant bacterial taxon. Colored stacked bars indicate the identity of the dominant taxa. Many dominant genera in the adult and pediatric groups are known commensals, whereas many dominant taxa identified in PICU samples are pathogenic. b Proportion of subjects with any dominant genus present on three body sites simultaneously. Many PICU subjects harbored three distinct dominant pathogens simultaneously at the three body sites studied. c Boxplot of abundance Jaccard distances between samples collected on the same date from PICU, pediatric, and adult subjects. Shown are distances between GI and skin samples from the same individual, GI and tongue samples from the same individual, and skin and tongue samples from the same individual. In all comparisons except skin vs. tongue, we found the median distance between samples to be significantly reduced in PICU patients