Microbial diversity and composition of BCMC taxa detected upon recovery from different volumes of milk.

BCMC2 was inoculated into UHT milk and sampled at the following volumes (cell numbers): 200 μL (1.26 × 103 cells), 1 mL (6.32 × 103 cells), 10 mL (6.32 × 104 cells), and 30 mL (1.90 × 105 cells). Expected percentages are estimated based on estimated cell numbers in the BCMC and 16S rRNA gene copy numbers for each species. The (A) total number of ASVs, (B) Bray-Curtis dissimilarity of intra-sample variation, and (C) expected taxa (9 bacterial species) are labeled with the corresponding taxonomic level from DNA sequencing results. Unexpected taxa were labeled as “Other”. Each bar represents a single replicate of BCMC2. Significant differences (Kruskal-Wallis with Dunn test, p (A) and between sample groups (B) are indicated by the presence of asterisks.