Fig. 6

Diversity and composition of SHNW skin (n = 17) and pouch microbiome samples at different female reproductive stages: subadult (n = 12), cycling (n = 6), lactating (n = 5), post lactation (n = 1) and anoestrus (n = 2). a Whisker-box plot showing alpha diversity (richness) of the skin and the different pouch microbiomes. Horizontal lines in the boxes represent the median values; the lower and upper bound of boxes represents 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively. b Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) plot based on the unweighted UniFrac distance matrix, portraying beta diversity between skin and the different pouch samples. c Bar chart showing the genus-level grouped (mean) relative abundance of microbial communities found at the skin and in the pouch during different reproductive stages. Only the nine most abundant genera are noted in the legend. One taxon could only be classified to family level (f_)