Comparison of variation within and between mice.

<p>(a) The average pairwise weighted UniFrac distances between technical replicates (includes all replicates—biological, extraction, sequencing run, and barcode), within 43 individual mice over less than two weeks (14 days), within four individual mice over 15–31 days, within four individual mice over 32–250 days, and among all different healthy mice. Bar height indicates mean; thin lines at the top indicate the standard error. All categories were significantly different from the technical replicates. ***, p<0.001. NS, non-significant. (b) Average pairwise weighted UniFrac distances between samples collected from the same mice at different times, plotted against time interval between sampling, for up to 14 days. The line represents the linear regression slope. (c) Same as (b) except that time intervals are as long as 236 days.