Influence of management practice on the microbiota of a critically endangered species: a longitudinal study of kākāpō chick faeces and associated nest litter

Table 3 Statistical outputs for alpha- and beta-diversity measures tested against covariates using Kruskal–Wallis (+ = Wilcoxon) and PERMANOVA analyses, respectively

	Kruskal–Wallis p-values for alpha-diversity		PERMANOVA for Bray–Curtis matrices (beta-diversity)
Covariate	Observed	Inverse Simpson	p-value	F	R²
Faecal samples
Faecal removal^	0.33/0.003**	0.14/0.21	0.99/ < 0.001***	0.73/10.39	0.01/0.13
Movement	0.46	0.66	0.1	1.98	0.01
Location^	0.15/0.002**	0.02/0.04	0.99/ < 0.001***	0.63/22.62	0.002/0.14
Age (continuous factor)^	0.01/0.007	0.17/0.11	0.02*/0.06	3.19	0.008
Age (fortnight category)^	< 0.001*/ < 0.001*	0.21/0.09	0.02/ < 0.001**	2.05/2.78	0.04/0.04
Aspergillosis	0.25	0.32	0.33	1.5	0.008
Nest type^^#	0.68/0.002**	0.14/0.20	0.02/ < 0.001**	3.49/8.24	0.01/0.15
Nest of residence^^#	0.003/ < 0.001*	< 0.001*/ < 0.001*	< 0.001*/ < 0.001*	2.88/3.38	0.37/0.36
Chick identity	0.19	0.07	1	1.62	0.43
Litter samples
Faecal removal	0.44	0.90	1	1.73	0.02
Movement	0.44	0.12	1	2.26	0.02
Island +	0.79	0.62	1	3.79	0.03
Days since first chick	0.44	0.72	< 0.001***	5.59	0.04
Days (fortnight category)	0.004**	0.12	< 0.001***	2.17	0.08
Aspergillosis	0.52	0.13	1	2.10	0.03
Nest type	0.62	0.85	1	1.75	0.06
Nest	0.52	0.62	1	1.85	0.40

PERMANOVA was performed with 9999 permutations. Significant p-values are denoted with asterisks (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001). p-values are Benjamini–Hochberg adjusted. ^ Indicates covariates with two p-values for which analyses were performed firstly without hand rearing samples, and then subsequently with their inclusion. # Sub-adult samples were excluded from analyses. Pairwise comparisons for significant tests are provided in Additional file 1: Table S3

ISSN: 2524-4671