Fig. 4

Maternal parity is associated with significant differences in offspring gut microbiome composition. Fecal swabs from 3 offspring of each of the 18 mother sows were collected 10 days after delivery and shotgun metagenomic sequencing was performed. A An NMDS plot shows the differences in gut microbiome composition across all 54 piglets, as determined by Bray-Curtis distance. Piglets born to the same mother (representing a unique “litter”) are represented by the same color. Litter is significantly associated with gut microbiome composition (P = 0.001) and explains most of the variation in gut microbiome composition (R²=0.56). B The NMDS plot comparing the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity between piglet gut microbiome samples is colored by the parity of the piglet’s mother. Maternal parity is significantly associated with gut microbiome composition (P = 0.002) and explains 5.7% of the variation in gut microbiome composition (R²=0.057). C All microbes with average relative abundance >1% across all 54 piglet fecal samples (Adj. P < 0.05) that were differentially abundant between those born to zero and high parity mothers are shown. Boxplots show the median and the first and third quartiles, with whiskers that extend to outliers up to 1.5 times the interquartile range. Adjusted P values are shown for each differentially abundant taxa