Fig. 5

Significant associations between taxa abundance and community state type (CST) across body sites. A bipartite graph was used to visualize the associations between CSTs and taxa at a distal body site (nasal (a), gut (b),throat (c)), with significant associations at a false discovery rate (FDR) of 5%. Edges indicate significant associations with color marking the direction and significance of the effect (red: increase in abundance, blue: decrease in abundance). Color shade corresponds to the level of significance, with lighter colors being less significant. Nodes are positioned using a force-directed layout, which places taxa or CSTs with similar patterns of significant associations near each other while attempting to optimize readability and limit overlap. d Relationships between taxa abundance and CSTs was also visualized using a volcano plot, with improvement in explanatory power (R²) conferred by the inclusion of CSTs in the model on the x-axis and − log10 p values of the model improvement on the y-axis. With individual taxa in each body site as the outcome (subplots GUT, NAS, and THR), a linear regression model was fit using the with and without CSTs of the other body sites as covariates, controlling for gestational age at birth, day of life, mode of delivery, birth season, and subject-level random effects. Full models (including all CSTs) were tested against null models (excluding the CSTs of the other body sites in turn) with a series of F tests