Fig. 3

Comparison of the preterm and full-term infant microbiota across body sites. a The mean proportion (per sample) of the top OTUs within each body site in preterm and full-term infants. b Intra-individual generalized UniFrac distances between body sites in preterm and full-term infants. Between-site distances were greater in full-term infants than preterm infants (median 0.75 vs 0.70, p = 0.006). c Shannon diversity across body sites and gestational age groups. Alpha diversity was significantly lower among oral samples than the stool, skin upper body, and skin lower body (p values determined by pairwise Wilcoxon rank sum tests with Benjamini-Hochberg correction). Shannon diversity did not differ significantly across the other body sites. Alpha diversity was lower in the skin among preterm infants compared to the full-term infants. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01